


The First Day of My Life

by MadgirlSBA



Series: born right in the doorway [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Coming Out, Established Relationship, Friendship, Fumbling through adulthood, Gen, Growing Up, Jack Learns Things, M/M, Original Character - Freeform, POV Third Person, Panic Attacks, The Falconers Team, boys dealing with feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-18 08:05:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5910166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadgirlSBA/pseuds/MadgirlSBA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Terry likes Jack.</p>
<p>This seems to mystify the sad bastard. And Terry can't figure out why.</p>
<p>OR</p>
<p>A Guide to Being an Emotionally Stable, Independent Young Man: By Terry Beaumont, Jedi Master, for Jack Zimmerman, Padawan</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It is OK to Have Friends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [captainmycatisthedevil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainmycatisthedevil/gifts).



Terry likes Jack.

This seems to mystify him, despite the fact that they were destined to be buddies: they live in the same building, they both like over-serious history channel TV shows, are both Canadian, and they both self-indentify as cat people (Jack definitely likes Terry’s cat Rooster more than he likes Terry himself, which is fine, because so does he). A few hangouts more and Terry discovers they like the same foods, _breakfast_ foods, which is good because that’s all Terry knows how to cook. In return, Jack feeds him the pies and bars and scones he always has stashed around his place.

(Their compatibility only becomes more obvious as Terry continues to force his cheerful way into Jack’s apartment. Terry’s bored and kind of lonely, missing his friends and his old team, and this is also something that he learns they have in common).

And sure, Jack is a little bit of a grump. Sure, he takes training _way_ too seriously for, like, anyone, and always looks sleepy, and offers an average one word of conversation for every of Terry’s _sixty_. But whatever! It’s all good to Terry. When management asks, Terry’s happy to accept Jack as a roommate.

Jack, alternatively, seems prepared to be the biggest letdown of Terry’s young life. And everybody else’s. He’s quiet in the locker room and reserved during interviews. He doesn’t laugh at the other rookie’s jokes, or sometimes he laughs a beat too late, like he needs to remind himself that things can be funny, which is both more awkward and more upsetting. The training camp is an exercise in the quickly-established, all-team game of _is Jack mad at us or is he just a dick?_

Terry knows Jack doesn’t mean it. But damn, the kid needs to calm the fuck down.

It never gets more obvious than it does in line for airport security, the morning before their first away game. Terry’s trying to stick illegal lotion bottles into Sky’s bag when Jack awkwardly and transparently pulls Terry away, radiating twitchy tension.

“’Sup?” Terry asks, waving an irritated Sky away.

“I snore, sometimes,” Jack says, apropos of literally nothing. His huge, basset-hound eyes look down at Terry’s feet. “And I’m not big on going out. And I like,” he stumbles, searching for the words, “…cleanliness. A lot.”

“Sick, bro,” says Terry, confused, because it is. Terry’s last roommate, Hammer, had talked in his sleep, jerked off in the shower without cleaning the drain, and had once come home so completely shit-faced that he puked on Terry’s bed. While Terry was in it. Like, Terry loves Hammer – everyone loves Hammer – and they still follow each other on Twitter and stuff, but, also. Terry could definitely be down for someone with just a little more chill.

“Oh,” says Jack. He twitches. “But. I make late calls, sometimes.”

“Okay,” says Terry. They inch through the security line. Terry peers at Jack, unsure what he wants. “Then, I guess just try and take them outside?”

Jack’s shoulders drop. Terry gives him a Beaumont-patented eyebrow raise, totally bemused. Maybe, he thinks, Jack wants them to have roommate rules? That’s cool. Or maybe he’s just a nervous dude, or maybe just doesn’t like surprises? That’s all cool, too. Hockey players have quirks – that’s a universal rule – and these were all pretty easy to accommodate.

“I’ve got a girlfriend,” Terry offers cautiously back. “So I’ve fielded some late calls, too. Let’s just agree, no in-room calls after ten?”

Jack looks relieved. He smiles back at Terry, who gives a mental shrug and claps him on the shoulder.

“It’ll be great,” Terry says, “… Jackelope?”

“No.”

“Jacky? Zimmy?”

Jack’s smile is small and sweet. Terry feels a surge of protective affection. Being handed to an infantile team like the Falconers after a successful, eight-year career with two well-established franchises was hard. Moving away from his girlfriend and all his friends was hard. The media coverage about the new team – who had been picked up in the Expansion Draft and why, what they had done wrong to get shunted – is still _hard_.

But, being a drama-dogged, legacy, ex-addict, recent college-grad, socially anxious, _rookie_ is also, probably, pretty hard. Harder. He figures being Jack Zimmerman is like being the meta-rookie, somehow both starting his career and staging a Jojo-style comeback.

Terry, who has years of experience being an adult celebrity-type person, is obligated – nay, _privileged_ – to guide him towards greatness.

“Stick with me, buddy,” says Terry. “We’ll figure it out.”

 

* * *

 

Jack is exactly as awesome a roommate as Terry thought he would be. For the first four preseason games they have on the road, he doesn’t make any calls that Terry sees. He doesn’t snore. He listens to music with his headphones in and comes home earlier than the rest of the team, quiet and collected and, as far as Terry can tell, sober as fuck.

Which is great for Terry, but an issue with some of the other boys.

“Do you think he doesn’t like us?” Kels asks, plaintive, breathing pungent alcohol-breath into Terry’s ear. Jack had left the bar an hour before, claiming that he hadn’t slept well, lately, and wanted an early night. But not before he’d frowned like an asshole at Kels’ attempts at flirting with the pretty bartender.

“He won’t even let us buy him drinks!” Sky says, lounging across his side of the booth. “What’s the point in being old if I can’t buy the rookies drinks?”

“You buy _me_ drinks,” says Kels. They ignore him.

“Jack should have nickname, too, yes?” Ilia asks. He looks concerned, his thick hands twisting in his lap. “Why he not want nickname?”

“Look, guys,” Terry says, holding his hands up in the universal sign for ‘slow your fuckin’ roll,’ but Kels talks right over him.

“He doesn’t _like_ us!” Kels slaps the table with his palms and Ilia startles. A little bit of beer spills from his glass. “That asshole. I am very likable.”

“You totally are,” Terry assures him. Kels pulls a face. Terry slouches and takes another sip of his drink. The bar is overheated and cloying and he feels, suddenly, very old. Which is fucked up, because he is twenty-fucking-seven, not fifty. “C’mon - Jack likes you guys fine. He’s just, I dunno, shy, or whatever?”

“He’s rude,” Kels mutters. “Just cuz’ he’s Bad Bob’s kid, and went to college and shit, you know, doesn’t mean he can be a dick.”

Terry glares at him. “Don’t be a fuckin’ pussy, Kels,” he says. He tugs at his collar and sweeps the sweaty hair off his forehead. They have reached the point of the night where a red-faced Kels is listing unintentionally into Ilia’s side. The two rookies struck out with the ladies tonight and ended up letting the vets funnel drinks into them, but almost everyone has left, now, and they have a flight back home in the morning.

Terry doesn’t want to feel any _more_ responsible for their hangovers.

“Can you jackasses catch a cab on your own?” he asks. Ilia looks daunted.

“I am drunk,” he says carefully. His English has been getting better, but it’s not perfect. “Talking to drivers hard, now.”

Kels just looks at Sky and Terry pathetically. Sky sighs and reaches for his phone.

When Terry and Sky have Kels and Ilia shuffled back into their hotel room and the door safely closed, Terry breathes a heavy breath. Sky leans against the wall of the hallway beside him and laughs and laughs, knocking his trucker cap off his head.

“What a bunch of fucking clowns,” he giggles. “I swear to God, what the fuck is this piece of shit team.”

“I can’t even tell you,” Terry says. He bends over and grabs Sky’s hat, dusting it off and handing it back as they walk away from the rookie’s door.

Skyler and Terry have been playing against each other for years, have gone out for drinks a couple of times with mutual friends, attended some of the same weddings. Sky is a little younger than Terry, but a little more even-keeled. Terry is so unbelievably glad he’s here.

“Seriously though,” Sky continues. “Kel’s an ass, but you’ve gotta talk to Zimmerman. We’re like two weeks into the season. He doesn’t want to be _that_ guy on the team.”

“Jack’s a bro,” Terry says, defensive.

“Hey, man, _I_ know.” The elevator dings open on Terry’s floor. Sky reaches out and stops the door from closing. “Look, it’s no skin off my back if he wants to stay in. But for his sake...” Sky shrugs. “He’s bitchy on the ice and quiet off it. He’s not making friends. He’s gotta relax or he’ll burn out.”

They both wince. The words ‘burn out’ hang in the air between them. Jack was supposed to have been in Sky’s draft class, before the overdose.

“Yeah, okay,” Terry says, “I hear you. I’ll, I dunno. Talk to him?”

“You’re an alternate captain, T. This is your chance to, like, be a leader. See ya.” The elevator shuts.

Terry wanders back to his door slowly, keeping half an ear out for carousing in their surrounding rooms and tracing the pattern of the hotel rug with his eyes. He’s steeling himself to go in when he hears voices from inside his room. Terry falters.

Has … Jack picked up? Should Terry knock? They never actually talked about what to do in these situations, mostly because Jack seemed to think they wouldn’t come up and Terry has a girlfriend.

But the mumbling isn’t accompanied by any other sex noises, Thank _God_. And what Terry can hear is noticeably calm, soft.

Whatever. Terry’s fucking tired, and it’s _probably_ okay. So he slips in his key card and opens the door.

“Honey,” he trills, “I’m home.”

Jack looks up. He is sprawled back across his bed with his laptop open on his stomach, illuminating his face. He looks back and forth between Terry and the screen, oddly frantic, before whispering, “look, Bittle, I’ll talk to you later,” and shutting it.

Terry blinks at Jack.

“Girlfriend?” He asks. Jack blushes and shakes is head severely. Terry raises his eyebrows at him and turns to flop on the matching bed. He flips onto his side, then onto his stomach, then onto his back.

“I’m already sick of hotel beds, man. The smell is in my fucking clothes.”

Jack nods and watches him, silent, like he knows that Terry is working up to saying something and that he isn’t going to like it. Terry groans, then decides he should just get on with it and flops back onto his stomach. He pats the bed next to him.

“Look, Zimmy,” he says, “come over here for a second. I need to talk to you about something. Wait, no, bro - don’t make that face. It’s not bad. Or, well. It’s kind of bad. But not, like – wait, seriously, don’t look like that!“

Once Terry has established, horrified and taken aback by Jack’s cartoonishly wounded face, that Terry is _not_ going to request a new roommate, or refuse to speak to Jack ever again, or whatever shit Jack was thinking, Terry gets around to explaining what he and Sky were actually worried about.

Jack is predictably reserved, even as he sprawls next to Terry on the bed. He keeps looking back towards his computer and rubbing his hand along where his phone is in his pocket, the movement reading as both absent-minded and compulsory. He listens seriously to Terry. The attention is almost unnerving; utterly intent but for the little ticks towards the electronics.

“Okay,” he says, finally. “But, you know, I’m not trying to be rude. I’m trying to be … well.” He swallows and looks away from Terry, his hands tense on his thighs. “I just want to play well.”

He looks miserable, Terry notices. His hot-dude-model cheekbones that Terry definitely isn’t jealous of are sharply accented in the yellow hotel lights. There are bags under his eyes that Terry hasn’t noticed before, but now thinks must have been there since training camp.

Jack swallows again, and it’s audible. In a low voice he says, “I’m trying to keep control.”

“I get that,” Terry says slowly, even though he only kind of does. He’d been a wild child his first year(s) in the league, and the specter of Jack’s false-start career looms. “But bro, you don’t need to keep it _that_ tight around us. We’re your team. You can trust us to have your back.”

Jack looks towards his computer again, and Terry thinks, _I get it, buddy, I miss my old team, too_. But Jack nods.

“Thanks,” Jack says. He scrubs a hand through his hair. “I’ll … try.”

“It’s not, like, an offensive play, bro.”

Jack flushes. “I know,” he says, honest and a little wry, “those are easier.”

Terry laughs. Jack’s sense of humor is like a fucking unicorn sighting around here, and Terry’d never bothered to wonder if it was unusual.

But, enough of this shit. If they talked anymore Terry was pretty sure they were both gonna heave.

“So!” He smacks Jack on the arm. “Wanna see if they have the A-Team on demand? I’m okay with the reboot if you are.”

Jack sinks lower onto the bed next to Terry, mutters, “Sure.”

And they leave it at that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of quick notes:
> 
> This story is told from the perspective of 27 year-old NHL player Terry Beaumont. He's entirely of my own creation, and dearly beloved. The Falconers, too, are mostly mine, with the assumption that this is their FIRST year as an expansion franchise.
> 
> This took me six trillion years to write and grew wildly out of proportion, so while some details are consistent with canon and the 2015/2016 NHL season, some would have required too much rewriting to be made accurate and I left them as originally conceived. 
> 
> But it's almost totally done now! Just editing the last chapter. And it needed to be brought into the world. Much love and thanks to my betas, captainmycatisthedevil and yoho81, who enabled me when I should have been doing more productive things. 
> 
> And thanks to my sisters. Love you both!


	2. Make New Homes Where You Can

Jack’s first game in Montreal is a pretty big deal to Jack, which Terry knows and is prepared for. He’s got a plan, even, which mostly goes ‘don’t let Jack turn into a mopey jackass by keeping eyes on him at all times.’

He presses the rest of the gang into helping out, which is easier now that Jack, you know, occasionally talks to them.

Sky takes Jack to lunch day of, Kels and Ilia demand tours of the city, and Terry sits next to him on the bus. Jack seems nonplussed by the extra attention but doesn’t tell them to fuck off. It’s honestly a miracle he agrees to any of the plan at all, and while reports back to Terry suggest that Jack isn’t a very good tour guide, is too jumpy about being recognized at lunch to carry a real conversation, and is undeniably weird about the rinks and ponds where he used to play, he still helps Kels and Ilia with their Quebecois and chirps them gently for their mistakes. He pays for lunch with Sky and shares his ear buds (Taylor Swift?) with Terry.

Basically, they make good progress. When The Gang meets the elder Zimmermans, Jack deals with the rookie’s collective stunned neuroses like a champ, only looking mildly murderous when Kels literally can’t make his mouth produce human sounds.

It’s Terry, though, that Alicia Zimmerman – just as intimidating as her husband, pretty like Helen Mirren, but in a fuzzy sweater and jeans – pulls aside at the door of the hotel lobby.

“Thank you for watching out for him,” she says, her voice soft and rounded like Jack’s. He may look like Bob, Terry thinks, everyone knows that, but he carries himself like his Mom. Serious and intent.

Terry blushes and mumbles some platitudes, painfully aware that _Jack_ is aware they’re talking, tracking their conversation with his eyes. Alicia looks grateful. She smiles at Terry and says goodbye to him in French.

And so Operation: Keep Track of Jack goes off without a hitch, everyone calm and accounted for, right up until they get off the bus at the Bell Center and Jack completely disappears.

“Where did he _go?_ ” Kels squeaks, bouncing at the door to the locker room and tugging at his hair. “I’m freaking out. I’m freaking out, guys. What if he’s having a panic attack?”

“ _You’re_ having a panic attack,” Sky hisses.

“Calm,” Ilia says simply, placing one of his heavy palms on Kels’ head, knocking his hands away and petting carefully. “Calm, now.”

“Do we call his parents?” Sky asks. Terry balks.

“No way, bro, no,” he says hastily. Terry can’t claim to totally understand Jack’s relationship with his parents, but he can remember all the tense family interviews after Jack flamed out of the Q. He remembers Jack’s extra layer of silence at dinner, the way he looked at Terry with bubbling hurt and suspicion after Alicia talked to him. “We split up, and we find him.”

“He can’t have gone far,” Sky says, nodding.

“Right!” says Terry. “We’re visitors here, people would recognize him. He’s probably holed up in a bathroom somewhere.”

“I’ll take the ones to the right,” says Sky.

“Great, I’ll get left. Ilia, Kels, you’re the least likely to be recognized. So you check … everywhere else.”

Kels looks for a moment like he’s going to debate that, but they don’t have time. Sky thwacks him on the back of the head, hard, and they split.

 _Man, Zimmy,_ Terry thinks as he tries to simultaneously move quickly and inconspicuously through the tunnels in the Center, _you picked a fucking time to go AWOL._

Then he rounds a corner, moving at an awkward, stuttering half-gallop, and almost pops a fucking gasket when he sees the figure tucked into an inconspicuous service corridor. Their back is to the traffic of Event Staff and VIPs and they’re cradling a phone against their cheek. The shoulders, the jacket, the air of repressed emotion – it is definitely, without a doubt, his wayward-fucking-teammate.

Honestly, Terry isn’t sure how he wants to handle this. Part of him wants to check Jack into the dirt and then stomp his face in, because Terry doesn’t need this shit right now. Another part of him wants to nurture his little protégé with love and noogies until he promises to never disappear before a game again, because Terry _doesn’t need this shit_.

Another, somehow less responsible part of him, is achingly curious about who’s on the phone.

“Remember the Epikegster senior year,” Jack is saying, his voice a low rumble. “Kenny said give it a few seasons, and they’ll know. And today, I’m just. Everyone here knows that I’m- ”

He pauses, tipping his forehead against the concrete wall.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “I forgot you were there. No, I know.”

Pause.

“No. _Non, mon che -_ it’s not … I’m not bad. Like that.”

Pause.

“Honestly.”

Pause.

“Alright, alright, here: I promise you, Eric Bittle, I’m fine.” He huffs a small laugh and listens as whoever’s on the other line babbles. Terry creeps forwards, feeling voyeuristic. Bittle? He’s heard that name before. He’s heard Jack talking to a Bittle, at night, when they’re traveling.

“Call after the game, eh? Yeah. Yeah, okay. Thanks.” Jack hangs up.

Terry doesn’t have time to assume a neutral position before Jack turns around. Jack’s eyes meet Terry’s, big and blue and as freakishly huge as ever, and the naked emotion on Jack’s face makes Terry freeze.

“Therron,” Jack says. “What.”

“Oh, uh, hey bro,” Terry splutters gracelessly. “We were just … we were looking. For. Um. You - are you ready to go?”

“Sure,” Jack says, still staring at him. “We?”

“Terry?” It’s Kels’ voice, echoing down the hallway, painfully indiscreet. “Did you find him?”

Neither of them says anything. There is a creeping coldness on Jack’s face.

“Is _everyone_ looking for me?”

“No, no,” says Terry. “Just Kels, and. Well, Ilia. And Sky.”

“What,” says Jack, sharp, “you thought that I couldn’t hold it – couldn’t hold it together?”

 _Uh-oh_ , Terry thinks.

“Hey, man,” he says quickly, “it’s totally not like that,” but Jack looks properly angry, now, and cuts him off.

“Are you going to check my bag for pills, too?”

“No!” Terry yelps. “No, of course not. Jesus, dude, I wouldn’t go through your shit. We were just worried about you.”

“I don’t need anyone else _worried_ about me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah!”

“Well tough shit you angsty fucker, it’s what friends _do_!”

“Terry?” Kels calls, and there’s the sound of footsteps. Terry and Jack stare at each other as the shouts bounce off the walls. “Terry! You find Zimmy? They’re looking for us.”

Jack’s shoulders are still up and defensive. Terry glares back. After an extended moment Jack nods and kicks himself off the wall.

“Okay,” he says. “Whatever. I believe you. Can we go?”

“Yeah,” Terry says, “sure.”

They walk back to the locker room in silence. The rest of the gang is waiting at the door, Kels bouncing up and down. He frowns at them.

“Bro!” Kels says, pouting. “Don’t go missing like that, damn. We were all like – where’d Jack go?”

“Whatever.”

“Whatever?” Ilia says. “ _Very_ worried. Big game.” He points towards Jack. “Big player.”

“We’re lost without you,” says Sky, who boldly tries out a grin. It doesn’t work.

“Thanks,” Jack says, and it doesn’t sound anything like the ‘thanks’ he said to Bittle on the phone, filled up with warmth and meaning.

He frowns down at his shoes and it feels for a moment like they’re all waiting for someone to say something. No one does, and Jack walks past them into the locker room. Kels stares after him, mutinous and kind of violent, but Sky makes a cutting motion with his hand and propels Kels forward by the shoulders. Ilia shrugs sadly and goes after them.

Terry watches Jack through the pre-game rituals, trying and failing to catch his eye. This isn’t fair – it’s not Terry’s fault Jack had pulled a Houdini, _Terry_ had been a good bro, the most wise Jedi Master, and he thought, viciously, that if Jack pulled any grade-school, pouty shit on the ice Terry was going to fucking kill him.

He shouldn’t have worried.

Jack tears it _up_. Terry, determined to be an adult, feeds him the puck over and over and Jack is sharp with his touches, dynamic and quick and instinctive. It’s absolute fire. Terry, finally locking eyes with Jack in the middle of a hockey-dogpile, grins at him. What had he been so worked up about? They were all professionals here. Jack was better than fine, he was great.

Jack gets a goal in their first shift, with Terry on the assist, and then one more assist for each of them before the end of the night. They whoop and hug it out and it feels good, new and bright.

In the end, though, it doesn’t matter. For every sick chain of passes there is a shot to nowhere, a missing link. The Falconer’s newness, their patchwork make-up, shows and shows. The Falconers are young like the Habs are the Old Gods.

They lose, their fifth game in a row, 5-3.

Afterwards, Jack showers quickly and slips out without talking to anyone.

“I’ll catch up with you guys,” Terry says hurriedly, shoving his stuff blindly into his bag. “I’m just going to go, uh, talk to him.”

“Good luck for you,” says Ilia, severely and pointedly cheerful the way he always is when he’s upset. “Will see you later, yes?”

Terry shrugs and skids out the door of the locker room. Jack’s already gone by the time he gets outside, so he grumpily hails a cab, muttering all the while to himself about bitchy, emo college boys.

At the hotel, a knock yields no answer, so he barges in. The lights are off, but the illumination from the hallway reveals the lump of motionless Jack on his bed.

“Zimmy?” Terry asks.

Jack doesn’t answer. There is a buzzing noise and a glow near his knee, but Jack ignores his phone. His breathing is deep but unsteady, a little hitched. The phone rings a few more times and goes silent.

“You get any food, bro-bro?” Terry moves into the room, slowly letting the door close behind him. “Cuz’ like, that was a sick game. You gotta recharge and stuff. The boys are going out for late dinner tonight – it’s Montreal, the little ones can drink.”

Jack says nothing, and the phone buzzes again.

“Is that Bittle?” Terry asks, daringly, letting the last dredges of his anger encourage him to push where he normally wouldn’t.

“Yes,” says Jack.

“You don’t want to talk to him?”

The silhouette of Jack’s side rises and falls.

“Not right now,” he says. Terry stares at him. Given their bitch fight in the Center tunnel, he doesn’t think saying, _he’s probably worried about you_ , _you ass, answer the fucking phone_ would be helpful. Even if it is totally true.

Terry takes a deep breath and tries to emulate the calm leadership of captains and coaches (and Mom-figures/Jedi Masters) he’s had in the past.

“If you don’t want to talk to him, fine,” he says finally. “That’s up to you. But send him a message so he doesn’t spend his whole damn night waiting for you to answer. Everyone’s got better _shit_ to do than wait for _your_ whiny ass to get it together.” He walks over to Jack’s bed and flips the light on the table. Jack blinks and sits slowly up. His brows are low on his eyes, his face flat and simmering.

Terry keeps going.

“And you don’t have to come out with the team - even though you got two _totally_ sick points tonight and you’ll forever be Ilia’s hero for laying that hit on the Russian - but if you’re going to stay here, you need to text them, too. And apologize. They’re sorry they made you uncomfortable, they didn’t mean to, but they were trying to help. I mean, Kels will never say it, but he’s a fucking puppy you keep kicking. They just want to be friends with you.”

Jack sits up further, squaring his shoulders like he’s going into an interview, and gives Terry a long look.

“What about you?” He asks. “We’re line-mates, and, you know,” Jack makes an aborted gesture with his hands that is possibly meant to indicate a non-Hockey, friend-like relationship. Which is pathetic and stunted, but maybe kind of nice.

“Yeah,” Terry agrees slowly, “we’re line mates. And if you’re super mad at me that’s, like, too-bad-so-sad, but I won’t let it on the ice if you won’t. And I’m sorry, too. Okay? But you’re my rookie and my friend. And I’m going to worry about you. That’s not a commentary on your lizard-brain, it’s just how it goes.”

There, Terry thinks, that was fair and adult as shit. Your move, Zimmy.

“Fine. I’m sorry,” Jack says. He looks at the comforter that he was twisting in his grip, then reaches for his phone and holds it in his hand. It starts buzzing again. “I’ll text the guys.”

“Okay,” says Terry. “Great.”

They breathe together. Terry can feel the flush on his face receding. The phone buzzes and buzzes and then stops.

“Are you going to be okay if I go?” he asks. Jack nods. “Are you going to come out with the team?” Jack shakes his head. He gestures towards his laptop.

“I’ve got stuff I can do when I get all, you know…” he pauses and wiggles a hand at Terry meaningfully. Terry nods. When Jack gets _wiggly_ , fine. “But I promise I’ll text the guys.”

“Awesome,” says Terry. He fidgets, still coming down from being pissed. He sighs. “Well, _I’m_ going to go drink, okay? Because that’s how I dealing with losing. Like a normal adult man. Cool?”

They make inarticulate grunts of acknowledgment at each other. Terry leans forward impulsively and ruffles Jack’s hair. Jack jerks away, spluttering (blushing?) and Terry lets himself laugh at his stunned face.

“Goodnight, young padawan,” he says. Then he goes to get a cab.

At the bar, Terry doesn’t ask the boys if they’ve heard from Jack. If Jack wants Terry to trust him, then, until there’s a good reason not to, he will. It’s only fair, considering all the embarrassing conversations Terry keeps making him have.

 

* * *

 

Tables, as they so often do in hockey, turn. They’ve barely made it past the lingering awkwardness of Montreal when Terry looks at his calendar and realizes, with a thump in his brawny chest, that there’s less than a week before they play his old team at his old home.

It isn’t totally bad, he tells himself the night before. He has buddies to catch up with – his old trainer lives there, his teammates, the couple from church who cat-sat for him. His girlfriend Kelly lives with her roommates downtown and he (and everyone else remotely involved with the Falconers, from players to maintenance guys at the rink) knows where he’s going to be _that_ night. There is a well developed pattern: she is going to be at the game, she is going to wear his jersey, and then he is going to go home and fuck her in it.

But, sitting alone in his living room in Providence, passing the time before he can go to sleep by drinking beer after beer and petting Rooster the cat, the promise of cheerful reunions doesn’t seem so great.

He just _misses_ his _city_ , with a kind of low-bellied ache that doesn’t go away and that he can’t get used to. He lived there for five years. That was a long time for people who weren’t, like, first round draft picks. He’d just been traded when he met Kelly, who went to university in town and studied marketing and was way, way prettier than him. He’d turned twenty-one in a bar surrounded by his new teammates, who counted off each shot in French and English and promised him three goals apiece.

In his apartment, Terry snuffles into his bottle.

It’s just - he’d felt so comfortable there, like he’d finally made it some place good. And they’d shuttled him off to the expansion franchise like he was dead fucking weight. It felt like something precious and personal had been taken from him without his permission. Which was crazy, because that was the life of a professional athlete and it wasn’t like he hadn’t known the score going in.

Still, as he cracks another beer and takes a long, sloppy swig, Terry can’t help but wonder if his fans have already traded out his jersey, or if some of them still have to save their money before buying the new Johannsen ones.

Fuck, he’s a sad bastard.

“I’m a sad, sad bastard,” he tells Rooster, who butts her head against his knee and looks at him with mournful eyes.

Mournful eyes, he thinks. He has another friend with mournful eyes. Without another thought, Terry rolls himself off the couch and out the door.

“Jack?” He calls, knocking. Come to think of it, why is Terry always coming to Jack and Jack never comes to him? That’s a sign of an unbalanced-fucking-relationship, right there. Terry does all the work. Which is nice of him, but also kind of exhausting? He thinks – maybe he should have a conversation with Jack about responsibility in relationships … wait, no, he shouldn’t, they had had _way_ too many of those for two manly men of unimpeachable manliness.

“Terry? You can stop the knocking now, eh?” Terry blinks stupidly at Jack, who he suddenly notices is standing in the open entry of his apartment. He isn’t thinking fast enough to stop one last hard knock to the doorframe and winces at the sound of it, extra-loud in his skull.

Jack is in his pajamas, his hair tousled, like maybe he’s just gotten out of bed to see who was pounding on his door. Oops.

“Jack,” Terry moans, “Jack, I’m a sad bastard.” He pushes past Jack into the living room, nearly tripping over the coffee table, which he’s pretty sure wasn’t there last time he visited. Is Jack’s apartment nicer than Terry’s? He’s never noticed before, but Jack’s kitchen is swank as shit. The rooms are tastefully decorated, too, if a little “ra-ra-college” themed.

“Thanks,” Jack says, dry. “Next time you can do the interior decoration.”

“Don’t _chirp_ me,” Terry whines. He sloughs onto Jack’s coach and curls into the leather cushions, listening fuzzily to Jack sighing and shutting his door. “I’m too drunk and sad to be chirped. Bro. Play some pump up music, bro.”

“Um,” says Jack. He squats down in front of Terry, a sudden rush of color that blurs across his vision. “I don’t know if music’ll help you, now.”

Terry flaps a hand at him. “I dunno, dude,” he slurs, “fuckin’ – fuckin’ find a spotify playlist or something, jesus fuck. Some rain music bullshit.”

“I could find you rain music,” says Jack, and Terry has no doubt he would, “ _or,_ ” Jack stands up and gestures towards the kitchen, a little bit of a smirk on his lips, “you can have some mini-pies.”

“Have what?”

“Mini-pies,” Jack says slowly, and Terry feels again like he’s being unnecessarily chirped. Jack cups a hand and tips it towards Terry. “Like, an apple pie, but this size.”

“ _What_?”

“C’mon,” Jack says, and pulls Terry upright off the couch. He steers him into the kitchen and settles Terry on a chair at the island, then resettles him when Terry almost slips off. Jack reaches into a cabinet and pulls down a blue Gatorade, which is Terry’s favorite. Jack looks at him sternly. “Drink that,” he says.

“I’m an adult, you upstart,” Terry rejoins, wittily. Jack just looks at him, refusing to fetch any unusually-sized pies, until Terry grumbles and starts drinking. Only then does Jack wander to his fridge and pull out a massive Tupperware container filled with baking paper.

“What. Are. _Those_?” Terry squeaks, leaning across the island and almost knocking his Gatorade over.

They’re… perfect. Each pie is precisely latticed, with rippled edges and dark berry filling. They look like clipart they’re so perfect. They look like stickers, or like, doll-food. But hand-sized.

“Is your Mom, like, secretly a god?” Terry asks. He reaches blindly for a pie and Jack, disgruntled, tugs the box away. He picks out two and carefully sets them each on a plate.

“My Mom didn’t make them,” Jack says. He fishes out vanilla ice cream. “Bittle did.”

Each pie gets a scoop apiece and a fork and knife that Terry’s pretty sure he isn’t going to use before Jack finally hands them over.

“Biiiiiiiiitle for the win,” Terry says. He rolls his name on his tongue and tries to decide if he’s heard of him before, maybe from the Q with Jack. But his brain is a muddled disaster and he gives up. “Eric. Bittle. Eric Bittle. Is he a god?”

Jack snorts.

“No,” he says, gently setting Terry’s plate in front of him, “but if he hears you said that he’ll act like it.”

Terry considers the silverware carefully, then shrugs, picks up the pie in his hands, and shoves half of it into his slack mouth.

“Holy fuck,” he breathes, and crumbs scatter across Jack’s island. “I want _Bittle_ to be my liney. Can I, like, return you to the store and get him?”

“No,” says Jack. Terry takes another bite. The ice cream is sweet and cold and the pie is just exactly as bitter as Terry’s soul. He shuts his eyes.

“You’re – you’re getting ice cream on your shirt. Terry. Hey. What’s gotten into you, eh? Here, take this and just - clean yourself.”

A towel slaps him across the face, blacking out his vision. The towel is damp and warm. Slowly, Terry reaches up and presses his knuckles into his eyes, watching the lights that bloom around the pressure. He takes a deep breath and licks his around his lips, grabbing the little bits of pie caught in his stubble.

“I just don’t wanna play tomorrow,” Terry mumbles. “I don’t even wanna go to the city.”

The sounds of Jack huffing dramatically around his kitchen slow.

“Fuck, I’m drunk … you know, my girlfriend’s gonna break up with me. I know it. She doesn’t – she doesn’t wanna date a dude in Providence. She doesn’t want to date a dude who she gets to see, like, once a month, maybe. When someone can get away.”

“Yeah,” says Jack slowly, and Terry can sense him easing onto the chair next to Terry. “Maybe.”

“S’not a maybe. She – she told me. Last time we talked.”

“I’m sorry,” says Jack, solemnly.

“We’re meeting for, like, a last-fucking-hurrah. Ha. Literally. We’re going to fuck and then break up.”

“Harsh,” Jack says. Terry shakes his head.

“Nah, man, it’s all sick. She deserves better than this shit,” he gusts out a massive sigh and the end of the towel flutters above his lip. “All I deserve is a sad-fuck. Sad sex. Sad, sad, sad Terry.”

“Okay,” Jack says. He gets up.

“Where’re you goin’?” Terry asks, but Jack ignores him. His feet patter out into the hallway and then, after a moment, return. Het sets something on the island next to Terry. There is the sound of clicking and then – unbelievably – Beyoncé.

 _I’ve lost it_ , Terry thinks wildly. _I’m drunk in Jack Zimmerman’s apartment listening to Countdown._

He lets the towel slide off his face and blinks to clear his vision. Jack is standing by an open laptop, his arms crossed, blushing hugely.

“What?” he asks, “did you want rain music?”

“Um,” Terry shakes his head. He has no words.

Wait, that isn’t true. He _has_ words.

“We be makin’ love in five, something, something, uh, four, I’m tryna make a three, still that two, something one!” He slips out of the chair and wavers into Jack’s space, clumsily bellowing along to the words. Jack pulls a long face and turns away from Terry.

“You smell awful,” he says, but he’s fucking smiling and Terry is so fucking onto him. Jack has shown his cards, finally, and they are _friends_ , motherfucker.

“Me and my boo in my boo coupe ridin’-” Terry sings. Beyoncé pulses through the apartment. Terry is fumbling to catch up with the beat, unclear about what exactly is happening, but totally content to reach for another pie and make a fucking mess of himself all over Jack’s kitchen. Jack hoists himself up onto the counter and lets Terry go wheeling by, smiling his little smile and bouncing a foot in time to the beat.

Terry shouts the final “still the one!” along with Beyoncé and collapses, giggling wetly, against the counter beside Jack.

“Who taught you Beyoncé?” he asks. Jack shrugs. “Was it Bittle?”’

“I have other friends from college,” Jack says.

Terry rolls his head on his neck until he’s looking at Jack upside down.

“Fine,” Jack says. “It was Bittle.”

“We’re sad people, Jack.”

Jack hums and bumps his leg into Terry.

“You wanna sleep here?” he asks. Terry considers it and then nods and looks down at his feet, which he realizes are bare. A few pie crumbs drop onto his toes. “Alright then.”

Jack leaves him there, again, and Terry tries to pull himself together. Spotify loads another Beyoncé song, but Jack turned the volume down on his way out. Terry listens to it while he absently chews on Jack’s untouched pie and drinks the rest of his Gatorade.

Jack reappears a moment later with a towel literally embroidered with the word GUEST.

“Take a shower,” Jack says. “I’ll put another Gatorade in the guest room, and then I’m going to bed.”

Terry nods again, throat tight, and Jack claps his shoulder.

The shower is hot and Terry dozes through it, feeling spent. When he gets out he stares into Jack’s mirror, swiping off the moisture with the edge of his towel. His eyes are rimmed with red. He wishes he’d brought his toothbrush, or his shaving stuff, or his deodorant. He wonders if Jack has any extra, guest-y stuff lying around. Like the towel.

He opens Jack’s bathroom cabinet, stares, notices pill bottles and a second toothbrush, and then slams it shut.

 _Forget it forget it_ , he thinks, embarrassed. He takes a deep breath and creeps clumsily out the door. When he stumbles into Jack’s guest room there’s a pair of sweatpants and a Samwell Men’s Hockey t-shirt folded neatly on the bed. A note on the side table reads:

_7:00am wake up. Riding with Kels. Gatorade in the cabinet left of fridge. Goodnight._

Terry groans and drops onto the bed. His head hits the pillow and immediately feels like it was eaten by it. He breathes. He could put the pants on, he thinks sleepily. Or he could just -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	3. Stand By Your Bros

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: use of homophobic language.

Jack’s not a fighter. Terry didn’t notice at first - it makes sense during the preseason, when the stakes are generally low and the fans are less rabid. What fans they have. Then the regular season starts and the gloves are dropping and Jack is somehow, still, always pulling guys apart.

People can (and do) say anything to Jack, and he _always_ has the same reaction. He’ll lower his eyebrows at whoever acts a bitch, tip his chin up, and skate defiantly away. It’s a hard pre-k, better-than-thou aesthetic that somehow pisses the opposing teams off more than any mother-related insults Terry can think to throw at them.

It starts to be kind of a thing, because fighting is happening a _lot._ There’s plenty of pride on the line with their cobbled together team of rookies and castaways, and they make an infuriatingly easy target for chirps. Add to it a preseason’s worth of almost straight losses and a sport that rabidly encourages violence and you’ve got a _lot_ of bloody noses.

Four games into the regular season Ilia takes the lead with three fights. In each he goes from zero to one hundred real quick, from the most composed person on the ice to whaling on dudes like he actually wants them dead. Terry can’t tell if its because he only understands the insults like a fifth of the time or because he bottles up his rage and then picks a dude to just, fucking, give it to. Either way it’s by turns awesome and frightening, and pretty much always a problem. ‘Russian D-man on a violent rampage’ is the running Ilia-related headline.

Kels, on the other hand, is the world’s least effective fighter and totally afraid to start anything, but the most willing to jump onto a scrum. He takes insults to his family with good humor, doesn’t mind being called names, but he defends the team with a bloody enthusiasm - usually by pin wheeling madly into whoever’s gotten into it with one of his linemates and causing bodily harm to himself and his own exasperated team.

It gets to the point where Terry knows the other guys are messing with them, jovially picking scraps and then tapping him condescendingly on the head at the end and saying, “oh, good fight there, buddy.” Jack’s unwillingness to engage starts to stand out.

As they hit game four and then five, Captain Olson notices. He likes Jack. Terry knows this from their weekly drinks where Olson checks in with his Alternate Captains. Mike Olson has a thick, Fargo-style Midwestern accent, and he’s mostly quit drinking, preferring a single glass of good, fancy wine over getting smashed with the boys. Mike and Jack seem to appreciate that about each other.

“It’s a great strategy,” Mikey enthuses at dinner. He’s got a glass of wine in his hand and his arm slung over the back of his wife Sarah’s seat. Terry and the other Alternate, an eight-year veteran of Captain Olson’s old team who goes by Casper, nod happily along. “Those guys out there – they don’t know what ta’ do with Jack. He’s smarter than they are, y’know?”

Sarah pats his arm. He’s clearly opined on the subject to her before.

“They’re waitin’ on this big guy to come and get ‘em, get the power play, and instead he treats them like they’re kids!”

“Maybe we should get some of the other guys in on Jack’s philosophy,” says Casper. He shoves an elbow into Terry’s ribs. “Ilia, for example.”

“We didn’t pick him so he could bash heads in,” Mikey adds, nodding. “We’ve got other people for that.”

Terry shrugs at them.

“I think they’re already on it,” he says.

And they are.

Ilia does it first. Halfway through their fifth game Terry is _sure_ he’s going to have to watch Ilia let their lead go with his gloves when an Islander who’s been spitting vitriol all night checks him low and dirty, but Ilia glances at Jack, draws up his shoulders, and turns away. Kels seems to see this as a personal challenge and delivers his own scathing, bordering on Shakespearean look of recrimination to an increasingly the off-kilter “aggressive player” later the same game.

Captain Olson almost falls into the bench he’s laughing so hard. When reporters ask about it he shrugs innocently and says,

“We’ve just got some guys over here who want to play as much hockey as they can, you know?” He nods at Ilia across the dressing room and Ilia blushes.

That doesn’t mean the fights stop. This is still hockey, an institution that happily relies on brawls to draw crowds. And there was never a question that the boys would hit back when necessary, no matter how superior staying clean made them feel. Still, by the time they play their first game at Boston, there is a notable decrease in the number of unnecessary power plays they allow against them.

Jack never exactly mentions it, but Terry’s pretty sure Captain Olson gives him a hearty slap on the back after the Islanders game. Every time after that, when Kels tries to take the high road on the ice and over-commits to the performance until he looks like a complete jackass, Jack smirks into the bench and knocks his sick against Terry’s like, _look bro, that’s our boy._

Which is why the fight in Boston is such a complete shocker.

Their line is called for a shift in the third period and Terry and Jack scramble over the boards, pushing and shoving. Jack’s got a bit of a mad smirk on his face tonight, because they’re actually playing well, enough that it feels like Boston’s on the ropes, like they might actually _get_ this one. They’re one point down with ten minutes of play left, they’re outshooting the opposition, and everyone’s got a serious bad-ass face on. They just need one more push.

The crowd bangs furiously on the glass as they step out, shrieking, and Terry spares a moment to grimace at them and think; _that’s what you get for underestimating us_.

The players are just as pissed as the fans. When they settle in for the faceoff, Terry can see their center spitting something at Jack, but he can’t hear it over the shouting. He’s off to Jack’s side; Ilia’s behind them; Sky is in the net. Kels just got off a madly-paced shift of his own but he’s practically hanging over the boards, Casper’s hand fisted in the back of his jersey to keep him from toppling onto the ice.

The puck drops and Jack snaps it to Ilia.

Look, Terry’s had a long time to get used to the pandemonium of a hockey game. The speed with which the players and the puck move, the necessity of believing you know where everyone is at once, the absolute, giddy absurdity of a play that somehow manages to work through all of that shit. He remembers, vaguely, the terror of being the smallest guy on his pee-wee team in Toronto and the thrill of his first professional game. Every time, every game, Terry feels all of that big, beating, _stuff_ in his chest.

It’s a job, right, but for the most part Terry loves it.

Except for moments like these. In what feels like less than an actual second from the start of the play, not one, but _two_ of the Bruins converge on Ilia. Terry can see his eyes go wide as he desperately shoots the puck towards the offense. It’s too late. They slam him, hard – one, two – into the boards.

The game stretches for another moment, carried by momentum, before Ilia crumples. Everyone stops.

 _Oh no_ , Terry thinks, right before Jack snarls and collides with the player who hit Ilia first. Their gloves go flying. Music blasts through the arena and the fans go mad as Jack hooks his fingers in the Bruins’ collar and starts whipping punches at his head. The slapping of sticks against boards fills the air as the benched teams jeer at their players.

Terry looks at the bench, wild, ready for a total line fight if that’s what they’re gonna do, because what the _fuck_ is happening, but Mike shakes his head. He gestures leadingly towards Ilia, who’s trying and failing to push himself up off the ice.

Terry pushes past the fight with his head down, one eye on Jack and one eye on the other Bruins. But they leave him alone. The linesmen circle lazily around the grappling players, waiting for them to get tired and stop. No one tries to interfere. It’s a classic hockey fight – graceless, brutal, and, to any one not used to Jack’s style of play, pretty mundane. Terry tries to tune it out, even as the commentators bellow encouragement.

When he gets to Ilia it’s sickeningly obvious that something is wrong with his shoulder. The trainers arrive at the same time as him and crouch down, reaching probing hands into Ilia’s jersey. Terry takes a half-skate back, accepting a Gatorade from the trainer’s bag and watching carefully as they sit him up, gasping, red in the face. Ilia’s eyes are screwed shut and he’s panting out sharp Russian.

Terry swallows and moves closer, getting down on one knee in front of him. The trainers don’t look at him, just mutter amongst themselves, trying to decide how to get Ilia vertical without jostling an arm that’s looks like its been destroyed with movie effects - popped out and too far backwards.

“It’ll be okay, buddy,” Terry says, trying to project confidence. “Hey, Ilia, look at me.”

Ilia shakes his head.

“Ilia, c’mon. You gotta see this; Jack’s trying to land haymakers for you, dude. Is it working? Look over my shoulder and lemme know. C’mon, Ilia. Look up.”

Ilia shakes his head again but takes a deep breath, looking up. His eyes are bloodshot and dilated. When he sees the fight he grimaces out what is probably meant to be a smile and there’s blood on his teeth. Terry grins back.

“Atta boy, Ilia! C’mon now, how’s he doin’?”

“Look … like child,” Ilia groans.

“I know, bro, it’s embarrassing. You, though. You’re a fuckin’ champ.” A trainer waves at him. They finally have a system figured out and he watches as they get arms under Ilia and behind him. They look at Terry, who meets Ilia’s eyes and nods.

By the time Ilia is up on two feet the fighting has gotten sufficiently boring for the linesmen, who step in. Jack and the Bruin are escorted out with five minute majors. As the medics usher Ilia off the ice and into the tunnel the other Bruin, free as a bird, skates by the Falconers bench looking smug. Terry wonders if it would be too soon to go again.

Mikey nods seriously at the coaches and slips onto the ice for the 4-on-4. He meets Terry’s eyes as they pass and shrugs a little bit, like, _I dunno either, man._ They both glance over to the tunnel, where Jack disappeared.

Terry spares a moment’s thought to Jack’s mental wellbeing – most fights in hockey are transparently impersonal and transactional, even bordering on business-like, and Jack had proven himself totally incapable of that kind of savvy violence – but the game is back on. And they have to win it. For Ilia, and for Jack.

After the game, narrowly won, the mood in the dressing room is a weird swirly-cone mixture of pride and tension. They’d won in overtime with a sick goal off Casper that Terry was going to go home and stream over and over again, but Coach had announced that Ilia, while up and seemingly concussion-free, had a dislocated shoulder and would be out for at least six weeks.

However sick Casper’s goal, or the feeling of a good win over a good team, the first serious injury of the season is a heavy weight. Especially, Mikey points out, since Ilia is both an international _and_ a rookie, and thus kind of on his own.

Before letting people leave the locker room Casper and Terry take down everyone’s schedules so they can set up times for people to go and check on him. Kels tries to sign up for just about every shift and has to be reminded that they have a game this week. Casper takes down Jack’s name twice.

“If you’re gonna toss punches on his behalf, you can take two shifts,” he chuckles. Jack nods seriously.

He doesn’t look like he just hulked out. Okay, he does a little bit – there’s a scrape across his chin and a bruise on his left cheekbone that’s gonna turn some ridiculous colors. But, if Terry’s being honest, and he always is, Jack carries himself like he just hulked out after _most_ games; embarrassed, moody, and tentative.

Today Jack is round and gentle. He sat next to Kels for the postgame talk and patted his knee when they got the update on Ilia. He accepted the chirping about his fight (“You looked like a fuckin’ ballerina, Zimmy!” “Maybe leave it to Ilia next time, eh? Shoulder or no he coulda definitely thrown ‘im quicker than you!”) with good humor and grace. He took a moment to speak quietly to Coach and another to congratulate Casper on his goal.

“ _You_ scored more than a couple popularity points today, bro,” Terry says quietly as they put away the last of their stuff. In a corner two guys are reenacting Jack’s fight while the rest of the team cat-calls from their stalls. “Fighting for Ilia and all. Team thinks it’s sick.”

Jack does a weird, nodding/shrugging gesture of acknowledgment.

“If I’m gonna do it, may as well be for a good reason, eh?”

“Thatta _boy_ , Jack!” Sky shouts, dropping an arm around his shoulder and rapping his knuckles against Jack’s skull. “Always knew there was a true hockey thug in there.”

Jack mumbles and shoves Sky away, but he’s smiling.

Jack and Terry walk out of the locker room together, Jack graciously accepting fist bumps and ass taps the whole way. No one but the die-hards are going out tonight – Boston’s not best pleased with the Falconers and they have an early-as-fuck flight in the morning. So Terry’s totally unprepared for the gaggle of young people wearing Falconers gear who are waiting for Jack outside.

“Jack!” A tall guy with a sick mustache yelps and bursts forward. He snatches Jack into a hug, mussing Jack’s hair and beaming. “My bro! My best bro. Oh how I’ve _fucking_ missed you.” Jack laughs and hugs back. A tiny girl with sharp hair and an almost equally tiny blonde guy share an amused look and trail after them. Behind _them_ are two massive bros, who roll their eyes and walk up to Terry.

“Your assist was ‘swawesome, brah,” the black one in the backwards Falconers cap says, reaching out to shake his hand. “I’m Ransom, this is Holster. We play hockey at Samwell.”

“Terry,” he introduces, gladly accepting the handshake. Ransom and Holster are clearly hockey names and not birth names, so they could both still hypothetically be the mysterious Eric Bittle. But it doesn’t quite fit. “What’s ‘swawesome’?”

“Sweet,” the other one, Holster, holds out one hand, “and awesome.” He brings his hands together dramatically. Ransom nods.

“Sick,” Terry says, meaning it. He shrugs his bag up further on his shoulder, waving as some more of the team pass towards the bus. He smirks as Ransom and Holster’s eyes trail after them. “Were you guys playing in town tonight or something?” he asks.

The girl has finally released Jack and the short guy marches up. He doesn’t go for the hug; he peers up into Jack’s face with a frown and plants one hand on his hip, reaching the other out to turn Jack’s injuries into the light. Ransom laughs.

“We play Harvard tomorrow afternoon,” he explains, watching Jack and the little dude with a dopey grin, “and Shitty, the mustachioed one, goes to law school in town. So we all came down a night early to catch the game.”

“It’s like a family reunion,” Holster sighs, obviously fond, and jabs a thumb behind him, “complete with this shit.”

“ _Fighting_ , Mr. Zimmerman?” the little guy asks, releasing Jack’s face and glaring. “Ridiculous. I don’t think I’ve even seen you fight before.”

“You were pretty out of it at the time,” Holster says. The blonde flushes but waves a dismissive hand.

“Now your face is all bruised up.”

“Sorry,” Jack rumbles at him, rubbing idly at the scratch on his chin and widening his eyes. He’s got one of his soft smiles going on, and Terry thinks he knows, now, who the blonde is.

“You absolutely are not,” the guy says. He crosses his arms and the name ZIMMERMAN stretches across his back. Shitty laughs and loops his arm around Jack’s shoulders, squeezing.

“And you shouldn’t be,” he tells Jack cheerfully, “you dropped the gloves and I swear to God, this lil fucker’s whole face got so red I thought he was gonna pop a bo – shit, _ouch_! Lardo, get your demon ‘bows away from me!” But the girl elbows him again, then again, hard enough that Terry flinches.

“Well, it was nice to meet you,” Ransom says, earnestly ignoring the shenanigans behind him. He shakes Terry’s hand again. “We’re gonna get the tour now, before Lardo kills Shitty.”

“Yeah, bro, you too.” Terry kind of wants to stick around (he’s 99% sure he owes the blonde one a lot of mini pies) but Jack is, like, fantastically, _mind-bogglingly_ happy, and Terry doesn’t think it was the fight knocking screws loose. He watches as Jack bends over into the little guy’s space, listening and nodding as he asks genuinely concerned questions about Ilia’s health.

Terry tips his hat at Jack and his friends and leaves them to it. He has a feeling, anyway, that he’ll see them again.

(The twitter photo that gets uploaded later only confirms what he pretty much already knew – he’d finally gotten peepers on the elusive Eric Bittle).

 

* * *

 

Look, Terry thought he’d see them again, but he didn’t want it to be like this.

It’s been a shit three weeks for the Falconers since Ilia was hurt. They play long strings of away games and lose more than half of them and then have to deal with a stridently positive Ilia, who does his “no, this is fine, love you guys so much, I’m great and you’re great” routine. Which is, like, nice of him? But somehow also heartbreaking and pretty much the worst unintentional guilt trip Terry’s ever been on.

When they get home after falling to the _fucking_ Sabres in OT they unanimously vote to send Kels to Ilia’s house because he’s a slut for punishment and feels weird, lingering emotions about Ilia’s shoulder. They all promise to stop by before the game in three days with food and shit, but they’re at the point where Terry thinks only a few of them will actually do it.

Whatever personality booster Jack got from seeing his friends has drained out, but he spends the night sitting with Sky and Terry in Terry’s living room watching House Hunters while they eat things not on their food plan. Or, while Sky and Terry eat things not on their food plan and Jack nurses the rare second beer. Terry is pointedly not making fun of the fact that he is clearly the lightest lightweight ever.

He pokes Jack with his toe until Jack grunts and looks over at him.

“You good?” he mouths as the lady onscreen critiques some poor house’s kitchen. Jack narrows his eyes at him and pokes him back. Outraged, Terry kicks him in the shin and it descends rapidly into a battle. Sky wallops Jack on the shoulder until they stop.

“Shut up, assholes,” he mumbles around an oreo. “I want Lynne to fucking pick this one.”

A month and a half ago Terry would have used this time to call his girlfriend and vent to her about how dumb everyone is and how Terry deserves better. But she’s gone now, and it’s not like he’s gonna tell his _old_ teammates that it sucks that his _current_ team can’t win to save their goddamn lives, and there’re only so many times a mom wants to hear her grown, adult son whine about his multi-million dollar job. So he snuggles back into his nice leather cushions and steals the oreos from Sky.

It wouldn’t be fair to complain about them, anyway. It’s been hard for them all.

A phone rings in the kitchen and the tone is unmistakably Halo by Beyoncé. Jack sees the look on Terry’s face and groans but Terry’s already vaulted over the back of the coach and barreled into the kitchen. He hears Sky say “the fuck?” before he flicks open the phone and bellows, “BITTLE?”

“Hi,” the voice is startled. “Jack?”

“No, it’s Terry! Beaumont. This _is_ Bittle, right?”

“Oh, um, shit. No? I’m Chowder.”

“Who’s Chowder?”

“Uh, hold on a sec,” there’s scuffling and thumping music on the other end of the line and he hears the guy on the phone say – _Terry? He says his name is Terry. Beaumont._ – and then someone else is on the phone.

“Hey brah, it’s Ransom. Can you put Jack on?”  
  
“Yeah, sure,” Terry says, confused and a little wary.

“Hey, Jack,” he hollers, “come here.” Jack shouts something back and Terry asks, “this is Bittle’s number, right? What’s going on?”

“No offense, dude,” Ransom says, “but it’s kind of not your business.”

 _Okay_ , Terry thinks, _be that way_. Jack pads into the kitchen, a questioning look on his face, and Terry shrugs and hands him the phone. He doesn’t leave, though, because the _off_ feeling has stuck itself along the bottom of his gut. He pretends to look through his cupboards for more snacks while watching Jack turn more and more pale out of the corner of his eye.

Sky wanders in after a minute, complaining that no one told him the party was moving, but he stops when he sees Jack’s face.

“What’s up?” he asks. Terry shushes him and flaps his hands. Sky scuttles over, and they mime squabbling over cookies while they listen to Jack talk.

“Sure,” Jack’s saying, “yeah, of course. Give me … give me forty-five minutes. No. No, I’ll be there in forty-five. Tell Chowder to go with him. Or – okay, good. Okay. See you.” Jack hangs up.

Terry’s not super sure what’s going on with Jack’s face, but it isn’t good. He’s pulling on his shoes before Terry gets a chance to ask, his movements smooth and intent. He doesn’t look at them before he turns and strides out the door. Terry and Sky glance at each other and then follow, ignoring shoes and coats and talking in favor of keeping up as Jack whips out the hallway and up the stairs to his floor, two at a time.

In his apartment Jack moves from his bedroom, yanking on a sweater, to his kitchen, grabbing a water, to his entryway, where he throws on his jacket and goes fishing for his keys in a little bowl.

“Uh, buddy?” Sky edges warily into the hallway. “Jack? Hey, slow down.” He puts a hand on Jack’s arm and Jack’s gaze snaps to it. “Seriously, slow down. Give Terry or me the keys.”

“Why?” asks Jack, sharp.

“The two beers you drank,” Sky says. “It might be embarrassing, but you’re fuckin’ tipsy, dude.”

Jack looks at the keys, then at Sky, then, demandingly, at Terry. Sky takes a step forward.

“I have to be getting home, anyway,” Sky says. “Terry lives with you. Either let one of us drive, or save it ‘till morning.” He gestures again for the keys.

Jack looks trapped. His eyes flicker towards the door and for an instant Terry prepares to physically stop him from bolting. But then Jack reigns in whatever impulse he’d had and, after a moment, lobs the keys to Terry. He grabs and extra coat and a pair of loose boots and tosses them, too.

“You don’t have to lock the door behind you,” he tells Sky, and then Terry is being ushered, hopping on one foot to get on a boot, out the door and down the stairs. Sky shouts something after them about texting when they get there that Terry doesn’t have a chance to respond to before he’s in the parking lot, fumbling to unlock the truck for an impatient Jack.

“Drive,” Jack demands.

“I don’t know where we’re going!” Terry says. But he backs from the parking stall anyway, heart hammering away.

“Get on the freeway going South,” Jack says, nose buried in … Terry’s phone? When did he even grab it? “I’ll pull up the rest of the directions.”

“We’re going to Samwell, right?” Terry asks. He tries not to be too obvious about the stuff he isn’t asking – _we’re not going to a hospital, right, we’re not going to a police station, right, we’re not going to the airport, **right**_ **?**

“Of course we are,” Jack says. Terry sighs gratefully and turns. Nothing can be so spectacularly wrong if they’re going to a college.

At least hypothetically. The whole forty-five minute ride Jack completely stonewalls Terry, which is a bitch thing to do because Terry is getting increasingly nervous. Jack doesn’t answer questions about what’s going on or who was on the phone and he lets Siri direct them. Terry tries reasoning (“c’mon man, I can’t help if I don’t know what’s going on”), he tries threatening (“I’ll turn this car around, young padawan, see if I won’t”), and he tries goading (“You are … a pussy”) to no effect.

It’s freaky, because when Jack’s in a mood like this he doesn’t really _move_. His face is inanimate and his hands lie curled on his thighs, not twitching or bouncing or scratching like Terry’s do when he’s anxious. He’s still.

Jack doesn’t even look at him until they pass the gilded iron sign for SAMWELL UNIVERSITY EST. 1874 and roll onto the campus. It’s covered in snow and pretty trees and the road runs them next to a frozen river. The buildings are grand and old. It’s stunning in a way that Terry isn’t used to, students cavorting drunkenly through the snow, red in the face with alcohol and cold.

“S’there a party goin’ on tonight?” Terry asks, peering at the group of students tripping into the truck’s headlights, a girl perched on a boy’s broad shoulders, giggling and hanging onto his ears. “I mean, is this place usually so hopping? I thought this was a nerd school.”

“Turn right in 800 feet,” says Siri’s robot voice. Terry rolls his eyes.

“There, that’s it,” Jack says, pointing. They turn down a row of frat houses and Jack directs Terry to pull the truck up next to a sweet, dilapidated two-story. The frats around it are all thumping music while people move in and out in a steady stream, but the house they’re here to visit is quiet.

“Stay here,” Jack says and launches himself out of the car. And to his credit, Terry _actually_ thinks about it for, like, three seconds.

Jack isn’t even on the porch when Terry catches up with him. He shoots Terry a look that he can’t help but wince at, somewhere between anger, panic, and a flash of what Terry’s going to freely interpret as gratitude. But before he has to try and – dunno, say something supportive – the door opens and they’re face-to-chest with the short girl from the Bruin’s game, Lardo. She’s got her hair pulled back in a tiny bun and her makeup is sort of … loosely running. She reaches up and claps a hand on Jack’s shoulder, nods seriously at Terry, and drags Jack into the house. Terry dawdles for a moment, then follows.

There’s a gaggle of boys slumped around the bottom of the stairs looking beleaguered. Terry recognizes Ransom bouncing his knee against the first step and searches for an absent Bittle, uneasy when he isn’t in the crowd. He gets halfway through a mental scenario in which Bittle has died in a gruesome baking accident before he hears a southern drawl from the top of the stairs, and, to his relief, Bittle rounds a corner.

“Honestly,” he’s saying. Holster emerges behind him, pulling a face, “y’all are ridiculous. Go sleep or go to some other party, I don’t need y’all hovering around fussing and making me crazy – oh.” Bittle stops dead. “Hi, Jack. What are you, um, doing here?”

“Here to see you,” Jack rasps.

Bittle blushes. He’s rocking a _classic_ black eye; red-rimmed and enflamed, skin a little split on his cheekbone where a scab’s already forming, his eye swollen half-shut. Terry’s first thought is ‘hockey-stick-to-the-face,’ but he doesn’t understand why they’d be here if Bittle’d just got beamed during practice. His second, more mournful thought is, _why the fuck would someone want to punch human-pie-machine Eric Bittle?_

“We should clear oooooout,” whispers a kid with braces, shifting from foot to foot anxiously. He’s still clearly in party clothes, a loose tank and face paint, and his pupils are blown. The freckle-faced guy next to him nods, but no one moves.

“Who hit you?” Jack chokes.

“No one _hit_ me,” Bittle says, fidgeting with the bottom of his shirt, “I bumped into a door handle.”

Jack stares at him. His face is grey.

“Seriously,” says the kid. “We should go.” But everyone is apparently paralyzed, Jack included. It’s soap-operatic – Bittle standing at the top of the stairs, backlit and wounded, Jack at the bottom like Prince-fucking-Canadian, and all the doting hockey bros looking on like nervous ball attendees.

Except for Terry, who still doesn’t know what the fuck is going on. He squares his shoulders.

“Hi, Bittle!” he calls, waving up the stairs. _Everyone_ turns to him, and the anxious braces kid is completely agape. Jack twitches. “I’m Terry. Thanks for the pies, man, they’re sick. You, uh, got some ice for your shiner?”

“Um, yes?” Bittle says, looking startled, “and it’s nice to meet you, too, I’ve-“

“We were coming down for some more,” Holster calls from behind him, holding up a dripping icepack.

“That’s good,” Terry says, “Holster – right? – bro, toss it.”

Holster tosses down the bag and Terry snags it. He looks around.

“Where d’you guys keep your ice?”

“I’ll show you,” says Lardo. Spell broken, she turns to the rest of the boys and makes a shooing motion with her hands. “Clear out,” she barks, and they scramble towards the kitchen and living room, leaving Jack to make his move up the stairs. Terry lingers in the entryway long enough to see him catch Bittle’s face in his big hands, tremulous and so tender, and Jack presses his face in and -

Holy shit.

“Gimme that,” Lardo says, and Terry startles. She’s watching him with narrowed, suspicious eyes. He blinks and skitters, inexplicably embarrassed, into the kitchen, fumbling the wet icepack to her as he passes.

A couple of the guys from before are draped over the countertops, pushing around solo cups and empty handles of rum, muttering amongst themselves at a low volume. Lardo pops the icepack in the freezer and turns to survey the wreckage. She crosses her arms.

“House meeting,” she says, “four minutes.”

“Finally,” someone grumps. The kid from before raises his hand, and Ransom cocks an eyebrow at him.

“Um,” he says, “can we clean first?”

There’s a chorus of groans.

“Seriously, Chowder?” freckled boy asks, rubbing at the bridge of his nose.

“I just think it would make Bitty feel better if we cleaned Cordelia. That’s all.”

The group seems to digest this.

“It’s a good idea,” admits a third kid, dark-skinned and stubbly. He sighs and leverages himself off of the counter where he was idly stacking cups into a tower.

“Alright,” says Lardo, “if you’re a freshman get out. If you’re not, start cleaning. Dex – mop.”

Terry should probably leave, and he knows that. But Terry’s not a freshman anything. And he’s not sure where he would go if he _did_ leave – he’s Jack’s ride out of here. So he starts picking up discarded beer cans, handing them off to the stubbly boy, who’s holding a recycling bin.

“Who’s Cordelia?” Terry asks him, in lieu of asking _so, Jack’s apparently super gay. Did you guys know that?_

“The oven?” he says, like that’s supposed to be obvious. Well, Terry figures, if it’s common knowledge that Jack Zimmerman likes dick around here, then why wouldn’t the name of the oven be obvious, too?

Between them – Terry, Ransom, a reappeared Holster, Lardo, and the three anxious guys who are identified as Chowder, Dex, and Nursey – they get the kitchen done in under fifteen minutes, complete with extensive sweeping, all dishes, and several runs to a dumpster out back. Once the mop has been run over the tile a few times, Lardo calls the house meeting to order and they sit down in a tight circle on the floor.

“Okay,” says Lardo, “let’s hear it.”

“I think we egg their house,” says Chowder instantly, “and then mug the guy on the way to his Econ class. I know when that is.”

Ransom whistles, someone hisses, _go in, Chow!_ and Chowder blushes.

“I’m still kind of drunk,” he admits. “Sorry.”

“I’m not saying Chowder is right,” says Nursey, “because, you know, violence. But he’s not _wrong_ , either. It wouldn’t be so out of line to seek some … retribution.”

“Bitty would kill you if you mugged someone,” Ransom says, and Nursey shrugs smoothly, nodding. Casually, Ransom adds, “but, like, what if he didn’t know?”

“We could make it look like an accident,” says Holster. He makes dark eye contact with Ransom. “We totally could, couldn’t we, Rans?”

“It’s not even totally Ryan’s fault,” Dex says. There is a hush.

All the eyes snap towards Dex. Terry follows, a bewildered second behind.

“Yes, it really fucking is,” says Nursey.

“Look, it’s bullshit,” Dex says heatedly, “but Bits hit _himself_ on a doorknob!”

“Yeah,” Nursey hisses, “but only because _your_ fucking Neanderthal baseball-bro _asshole buddy_ called him a _faggot_ and he tried to _get away_!”

“Hush,” Lardo hisses, “quieter.” Nursey glares at Dex, who glares back.

“I’m not saying that Ryan, like, did the right thing,” Dex whispers, an irritated flush high on his cheeks. There are several derisive snorts. “Okay, fine, he’s the devil, or whatever. But there’s a _system_ for a _reason_. You can’t attack someone because he called someone else a name. This is Samwell.”

“He did more than call him names, Dex,” Chowder says, plaintive. “He scared him. C’mon.”           

“And you’re totally right,” Holster adds, “this _is_ Samwell. And the Haus. Bits shouldn’t have to put up with that kind of shit here.”

“So we submit a Bias Incident report like we’re supposed to!”

“Or sue ‘em,” Terry offers. “Um. I mean. Defamation of character, or something?”

“Oh god,” Lardo says, “you’re so out of touch.”

“I still say we beat him up,” says Nursey.

Dex’s face is so red it’s comical. He flails towards Nursey.

“Bitty was drunk and he _tripped,_ Derek, you can’t just _-_!”

“We gonna do whatever Bitty wants to do,” Ransom interrupts, firm. “As much as I like imagining Ryan’s face caved in, Nurse, it should be Bitty’s decision.”

“He’s not going to do anything,” Dex mutters.

“What the fuck do _you_ care–“

“I agree with Ransom,” Lardo says. “It’s important that Bitty does what he wants. He was the one who was attacked.”

“So, what, we just let it go?” Nursey asks. “It’s our house, too.”

“Unless Bitty says otherwise,” Ransom says. “He’s the, y’know. _Vic_.”

“This is the worst,” Chowder mumbles. They all look at each other. There’s a sudden clattering on the stairs.

“Shit,” Holster mutters, scrambling to his feet, “act natural.”

Never once in Terry’s long and storied life have the words ‘act natural’ ever prefaced a moment wherein anything remotely natural happened, but they all give it their best shot. When Bittle and Jack round the corner Lardo is rummaging in the freezer, the sophomores are regaling Terry with over-loud stories of their season (Terry is pretty sure they’re accidentally discussing three different games), and Ransom and Holster are scrubbing a clearly spotless stove.

“Oh,” says Bittle, “you cleaned the kitchen!”

Chowder stops his story and literally _puffs out his chest_.

Dex slaps a hand over his eyes and groans. Bittle quirks a look at them that is clearly both confused and genuinely touched, but when he tries to add a smile he winces and makes an aborted move to rub his eye. Chowder’s obvious pride fades. Lardo breaks the resulting silence by clearing her throat and offering up another icepack.

“Here,” she says, and hands it to Bittle. He takes it but sighs, frowning. Jack raises an eyebrow at him.

“It’s cold,” Bittle mutters. Jack pulls it back from him, leaning into Bittle’s space and pressing their fingers together before moving to wrap it in a towel. Bitty softens and curls his red hands back into his pockets. He surveys the room, and his eyes alight on Terry.

“Hi,” says Bittle. It takes Terry a moment to realize that he’s talking to him. “We never actually met – I’m Eric. But all the hockey folks call me Bitty.”

“Hi, Bitty,” Terry says, trying and failing to sound calm and friendly. Gay mystery boyfriend, holy shit.

“Thanks for driving all the way out here,” Bitty continues, “you probably had other plans, and it’s just … nice of you to, well. To help.”

Bitty has a sweet, open face and a firm voice. His one eye is gonna look pretty crazy tomorrow, and the other is a little red, a little swollen. Terry has the sudden, uncontrollable, uncharitable thought: _you are a disaster just waiting to happen_.

He’s saved from having to actually speak to Bitty by Jack, who returns to them and offers the reinforced icepack. Bitty gives him a look of suffering indulgence and settles the icepack back against his face, ginger. Then he shakes Jack off, musters his shoulders, and strides purposefully into the kitchen.

“Can I offer you anything to drink?” he asks Terry. He starts to reach into the cabinets, which Terry knows for a fact were hastily and chaotically shelved with alcohol during the cleaning process, and is beset on all sides by horrified bros.

“Bitty, no!” Chowder gasps and trips forward, “we’ve got it! Don’t look! Terry, man, you thirsty? A glass of water, or, I dunno, um, that’s like all we got right now that isn't vodka-“ and Chowder scrambles past Bitty to the sink. Bitty rolls his visible eye and throws up his free hand.

The tense we-weren’t-just-talking-about-you-no-siree atmosphere slowly dissolves as Eric consents to “taking it easy, brah” and assumes a spot at the small table in the corner. The others join him, clutching glasses of water, jumping into conversation with the specific relief born of deciding _not_ to talk about a thing. They immediately begin arguing about who has to clean what part of the house, whether anyone should ever have to go into Ransom and Holster’s attic, and what, exactly, Dex and Nursey should have to do in order to get ‘dibs.’

Jack’s the only one paying attention to Terry anymore, and Terry realizes, with sudden clarity, that it’s because everyone else thinks Terry knew. About Jack and Bitty. They don’t understand that he’s having kind of a revelation, here, about why Jack’s so standoffish about his phone calls, why he’s so weird about the media following him, and why he doesn’t get girls when they go out.

But _Jack_ knows he didn’t know, and Bitty probably does, too, and it’s freaking Terry out.

Look, Terry’s never had a gay friend before. Or at least, he doesn’t think he has. There was a kid in his high school who was, like, _pretty_ gay, but Terry wasn’t friends with him; he did photography club or something. He’s never thought about gay hockey players. Hockey self-selected for normal people, right? Or, non-gay people. Straight people.

Terry doesn’t know; he’s not used to this.

So he’s sitting in this frat kitchen, trying to convince himself that this isn’t a big deal, because Terry’s no fucking homophobe or anything, but it just. Fucking. _Is_. He wishes simultaneously that Jack had told him before and that he’d never found out. He feels both like he has no idea who Jack is and like he knows him better than ever. He’s bizarrely, nebulously offended, he’s pissed off, he’s protective, and he doesn’t know what to do with any of it.

“Jack,” Terry says finally as the clock on the stove ticks past one in the morning. Jack looks up. “Are you staying here tonight?”

Bitty glances over at them. He’s got really big eyes, Terry thinks again, like Jack, but less constitutionally sad. They’re watching Terry warily, just slightly tense.

“I don’t think so,” Jack says slowly. “We’ve got morning practice, tomorrow, so.”

“Oh, c’mon,” says Hoslter, “I don’t have class ‘till fucking one, bro. I’ll drive you back.”

“Bitty?” Jack asks, looking down at him. Bitty shrugs, glancing away from Terry.

“You do what you have to do,” he says, “but you know you’re welcome here.”

Jack seems to waver for a moment and to Terry’s mounting, indescribable, _burning_ frustration, looks at _him_ , like he’s somehow got the answers.

And look, Terry’s not sure what Jack sees there. Or what _he_ sees in _Jack_ , but there’s a moment where Terry knows he’s supposed to smile reassuringly or maybe he’s supposed to drag Jack to the car but he can’t do it. He just … shrugs. Jack turns back to the table and nods. Bitty sags against him, clearly relieved, and Terry shakes his head. He hops up.

“Well,” he says, “looks like you’ve got it all under control.”

“Good to meet you, Terry, I’ve heard so much,” Bitty mumbles, an admirable effort at hospitality, but he mostly sounds sleepy. Jack huffs and extricates himself carefully from the table, whispering a promise to be back in a few minutes.

Terry waves goodbye and then they walk silently down the dim hallway, up to the doorway, out into the crisp air, and then across the street to Jack’s truck. Terry has his hand on door before Jack says, “Wait.”

Terry stops. They stand there, in the cold, surrounded by the bustle of a Saturday night just barely starting to wind down. “I just,” Jack rubs the back of his neck and avoids Terry’s eye. “I want to be sure that we’re … okay.”

“Yeah,” Terry says, “we’re okay.”

“Are you sure?” Jack asks.

“ _Yeah_ , Jack.”

Jack exhales and drops his arms. He finally meets Terry’s gaze, blinking his stupid eyes rapidly. When he speaks, he sounds uncharacteristically tentative.

“You’re not going to tell anyone. Are you?”

“The fuck?” Terry balks, “No!” He jabs Jack in the shoulder. “Go the fuck back inside and leave me alone, asshole!”

Jack rubs his shoulder and doesn’t move.

“I just, um,” Jack whispers. He looks down at his feet. “I haven’t, exactly, told anyone.”

“God, I can’t fuckin’ deal with – obviously, Jack.”

“Look, I’m sorry. I can’t just trust people with this.”

“Sure,” Terry hisses, “gotta ask if I was gonna fuckin’ call, like, TMZ or some shit.”

“I just needed to know, eh? For sure.”

“Well, now you fucking do. Go back inside, man. Your boy,” Terry stops and bites his tongue, “he sounds like he had a shit fucking night.”

Jack blinks.

“And we can talk about the … _gay_ stuff later. But, like, man up, man. You’re already here and you’ve gotta deal with your shit, and, whatever. I’ll talk to you in the fuckin’ morning.”

Terry wrenches open his car door and throws himself inside. He grips the wheel tight and takes a deep breath. He’s still mad at Jack, but he’s also right. This is about Bitty and not them, the two grown men having emotions on a frozen college street.

He rolls down the window and catches Jack as he turns back to the house.

“Look, man,” he says, “it’ll be fine. He’s obviously way, way tougher than you.”

Jack nods and some of the tightness bleeds from his face.

“Yeah,” he says, “he is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, Bruins fans. They're just the most conveniently located team. 
> 
> Thanks again!


	4. Let It Go, Bro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: anxiety attack, Terry not having his shit together.

When Terry told Jack that they were going to talk about the gay stuff later, he mostly meant Jack’s deep-rooted fear of betrayal, his unwillingness to trust the obviously trustworthy Terry, and the emotional heaviness that was long-distance-secret-dating a dude.

Instead, Terry can’t stop asking questions about stuff that is a) dumb b) none of his damn business and c) pissing them both off.

“What are you going to do if someone finds out?”

“Who was your first kiss and was it a hockey player?”

“Have you ever had a wet dream about me? It’s okay if you have.”

“If you weren’t dating Bitty, would you date Tyler Seguin? He’s hot. Even _I_ know he’s hot.”

“So. When did you first _know_ you were gay?”

“What the _fuck_ , T,” Jack snaps, darting a quick glance around the plane to see if anyone is listening. When no one looks at them he rubs a hand over his face like he’s just _so_ exhausted by Terry’s whole existence.

“No, seriously,” Terry says, “I’m curious. I mean. I never … like, I never just _realized_ I liked girls, right? I always knew. But everyone talks about gayness like you wake up one morning and know you’re gay.”

Jack snorts. “Some people think those are related, eh?”

“Tell me,” Terry says, and it comes out sharper than he means it to. Jack spasms. He looks around the plane one last time, tenses his shoulders, and answers.

“ _Tabarnak_. Fine, it was – there was a kid who lived down the street from me when I was, eh, nine, and I told my mom I wanted to marry him. That’s when I knew.”

“I _am_ dating Eric, so it doesn’t matter who you think is hot.”

“No. Never.”

“Yes, it was a hockey player. No, I won’t tell you who. No, you don’t know him.”

“I try not to think about what'll happen.”

“Seriously?” Terry asks. They’re walking through the tunnels of the rink together after yet another viciously frustrating home game that ended in a narrow loss. December has arrived, and they have a whole four days off before a trip south to play the Hurricanes, and Terry wishes he had even a little bit more energy left to enjoy it. “That’s fucking stupid. Jesus, Jack, you’re literally dating a vlogger. Someone could figure it out, like, whenever. What the hell do you do _then_?”

“Drop it,” Jack mutters, “you have no idea what you’re asking about.”

There’s an edge to all the questions that Terry asks, but especially these.

Since the surprise trip to Samwell they’ve been striving desperately for normalcy, mostly in that they still carpool to practice together, watch made-for-tv-documentaries, and share Bitty’s pies. But every now and again, when Terry asks questions, even when he’s genuinely curious or just wants Jack to know that they can talk about these things, he gets kind of … pissed. Combative. Terry starts to probe Jack like he’s administering a test that they both know Jack’s can’t pass, and then they both wind up with raised hackles and gaping silence between them.

This is what Terry knows: sometimes he gets a rush of cold vindication when Jack twitches with discomfort, or gives him a stilted answer to an easy question, or when he gets white in the face and doesn’t say anything at all. On the other hand, Jack looks like all of his worst fears are being confirmed whenever Terry gets even slightly curious. He sighs like this was all just so predictable, like the whole world’s out to get him and Terry’s leading the charge.

Terry knows that that’s not how a good bro is supposed to feel. He knows that they’re being unfair. He just doesn’t know how to make it go away.

“Hey, Jack, Terry,” one of the public relations staff jogs up to them, a little red in the face and pulling at his bright blue tie, “can you two hang out for a minute and do media?”

“Sure,” Jack says and Terry moans, because hey, whatever, Jack’s going to be captain one day, face of the franchise blah blah blah, but that shouldn’t mean that Terry has to expose himself to the monsters with cameras who live under the bed. Then George appears outta nowhere with her commanding ponytail and pantsuit and Terry groans again because all the Falconers will do anything George asks them to, Terry included.

Casper is waiting by the door, talking to Kels. He nods at Jack and Terry and Kels gives them a painfully dishonest smile.

The Gang have noticed that there’s something weird with them – Terry can tell by the way they tread lighter at dinners and practice and shoot them concerned looks when they think Terry isn’t looking – but Ilia’s too polite to straight up ask, Kels is desperately pretending that nothing’s wrong because his emotional stability is reliant on everyone else holding it together, and Sky’s tired of Terry refusing to explain. This is another thing that Terry feels bad about but doesn’t know how to fix. He asked Jack, once, whether he would ever tell the gang that he was in a gay relationship with a college student, and the ensuing days of communication blackout had firmly and stupidly answered the question.

“It should be quick,” the PR guy says, frazzled. He notices Kel and goes alarmingly red in the face, and George gently suggests, “maybe Kels can go help with the other thing?” Kels shoots Terry and Jack a last, wounded look and slouches away from the door. After he’s gone, George claps Terry on the shoulder.

“Get in, get out, get home,” she says. “Go get ‘em.”

Jack and Terry trade a hard glance before they troop into the hallway. Someone’s fitting a mic to Terry’s collar when they’re joined there by Mikey, who looks, impossibly, even more wiped than Terry is.

“Ready?” Chester, the PR guy, asks. Mikey shakes his shoulders out and nods at him, then taps his mic, putting on his Captain Face. He gives the reporters his best, most Minnesota-nice smile. The cameras flash.

Most of the questions go to Mikey, because people are fascinated by what it’s like to captain a team of utter losers. A couple each are for Casper and Terry, about their personal careers, how they feel the team is developing into, like, a real franchise, and how they’re adapting as leaders. And then there are the ones for Jack.

Look, Jack’s thrilling, maybe be the biggest rookie player in the NHL. As it is he’s on track for hella points this season, way more points than Terry’s ever been on track for at any period in his career, and Terry knows that there are already rumors of other franchises sniffing around for Jack’s transfer request.

Terry’s not sure anyone understands how patently uninterested in leaving Jack is. Jack’s emotionally attached, now, because that’s the kind of guy he is. He’s just such a fucking gentleman when he talks about it that no one believes him.

“It’s been a hard couple of games,” Jack agrees, solemn and earnest as can be, “but we’re getting better. Everyone here wants to win, and we’re learning how to do that as a team. I’m proud to be a part of that.”

“And the pressure?” asks a man at the back, “are you feeling healthy?”

Terry rolls his eyes so hard it hurts and Mikey steps on his foot.

“I’m perfectly healthy, and feeling supported by the team and the staff,” says Jack. “I’m happy here.”

“As we move into the Christmas season,” a different reporter says, clearly piggybacking on Mr. Nosey-Asshole in the back, “is the schedule reminding you of your youth career?”

“No,” says Jack. “It’s entirely different.”

“How are you handling the pressure?”

“I rely on my team,” Jack says, but there’s an edge to his voice now, a briskness that didn’t exist before. “I cook, some; try to get to know the town.”

“No partying? None of the old temptations?”

“Excuse me?” Jack asks, after a brief but significant pause. Terry, who feels like he just got punched in the solar plexus he’s so taken aback, leans forward until he can see Jack. There are spots of bright heat on his cheeks. His brow is low over his eyes and Casper is lightly touching the back of his elbow. And Terry realizes that he recognizes this face; hunted, distant, careful.

“I mean,” the reporter says, deliberate, “have you felt the impulse to go back to drugs?”

 _Oh, fucking shit fuck,_ Terry thinks, _Fuck these assholes and fuck me, too._

He’s peripherally aware of all the cameras and booms, everyone wearing headphones or clutching a microphone, everyone staring at Jack. The rustling of the crammed hallway feels suddenly oppressive, and Terry wants to tell everyone to shut the fuck up and stop asking _dumb_ questions, but he can’t, because they’re all “professionals,” because Jack would actually hate him forever, and because _fuck_ if this isn’t some Terry Beaumont behavior.

“No drugs,” Jack says. His voice is clear and flat. “I’m doing well here. It’s been a good season, and I’m lucky to be where I am.”

Another woman raises her hand and Terry can feel them all tensing, the moment swelling, but Chester steps out in front of them and claps his hands together cheerfully.

“Thanks, everyone,” Chester says. He sounds good, Terry thinks as Mikey leans forward and bids everyone goodnight. A good, solid professional.

There’s a rumble of disgruntlement from the assembled reporters and a few more flashes of cameras as they start to pack up their belongings. Terry stares murder at all of them, and he thinks some of them look uncomfortable, glancing at Jack before scrolling guiltily through their phones. Some of them, though, just look a little disappointed. Maybe that Jack didn’t reach into his pant pocket and drain a pill bottle with whiskey?

In the locker room, George and Mike catch Jack and pull him quickly aside. Casper and Terry stall until George shoots them a look and waves them on, but Terry was supposed to be riding home with Jack anyway, so he wanders down the restricted parts of the hallways until Jack shows up.

He looks possibly even worse than the night Bitty got wrecked. Then, he was like just-zambonied ice, cold and flat and still. Now he’s shaking, little tremors visible in the hands on the strap of his bag and around his knees. Mikey’s head pops around a corner behind Jack and he makes meaningful, judgmental eye contact with Terry, who makes a face back.

So Terry’s been a shit bro – okay. But Jack’s still his motherfucking padawan, not Mikey’s, and this is Terry’s to fix.

“Hey, bud,” he says, walking up until he’s right in front of Jack and gently clapping a hand on his arm. “Hey,” he says again, “hey Jack.” Then he stalls, because he’s honestly never seen a dude who is both this sober and this out of it. Jack’s shaking and his face is maybe a little green and … well, this isn’t exactly private. Terry looks frantically around. There’s a supply closet off the side where he thinks brooms and mops and cleaning shit is kept, and he does a quick sweep of the hall, shoots Mikey the finger, and drags Jack into it.

This in itself should be weird enough behavior to warrant a protest but Jack just looks down at his toes.

“Look, Zimmy,” Terry says, and he can feel his face burn. He shuffles and clears his throat. He’s gotta say it; Jack’s gotta know. “Look. I, um, I feel like shit, okay? I was just, really, I don’t know, surprised and pissed off. I don’t think I ever noticed that that I was being – I mean – I knew I was being a dick. Me always bothering you, asking questions like that. But I didn’t understand why?” Terry swallows and takes a breathe, “But the reporters today were such fucking asshats, they had no right to be asking that shit, and it was _wrong_ of them.”

Jack snorts, an ugly acknowledgement, and looks towards the door. Terry just shifts so he’s in Jack’s line of sight. He’s determined to see this through.

“But, Zimmy,” he says, “buddy, it was really, really wrong of me. I get that now, okay? I can’t make them stop, but, like. _I’ll_ stop. You don’t owe me, or them, or _anyone_ shit. And I’m, just, really fucking sorry. I’ve, uh, I promise I’ve got your back now. Okay?”

Jack … laughs. He tips his head up towards the fluorescent closet lighting, and his hands are still shaking, but there’s desperate, weak laughter bubbling out of his chest.

“Bro,” Terry says, taken aback. “Breathe, man.”

Jack shakes his head, and also the rest of his body. Terry places a tentative hand on his shoulder and feels it rattle up his arm.

“Bro, cut it out. Bro. In through the nose, out through the mouth? C’mon. Out. In. BIG out, BIG in. Jesus, fuck - let’s go, Jack, _breathe_ , or I’ll fucking pop your teeth out.”

Jack huffs another laugh and shoves his hands into his eyes. It’s wheezy and pathetic, but he follows it with a weak inhale. Terry nods and babbles at him; a stream of reassuring instructions mixed with threats of violence. He squeezes Jack’s shoulder.

Eventually Jack’s anxious, spazzy laughter and Terry’s sputtering assurances peter into silence and they’re left breathing together in the dark closet, Terry’s hand on Jack’s shoulder.

When he notices he winces and snatches it back.

“God, man, sorry,” he whispers, “I swear I’m not trying to fuck this up.”

“I know,” Jack says.

“Seriously.”

“I _know_ ,” Jack says. “I just … you were the first person here I told.”

It’s an accusation, Terry knows that, but Jack doesn’t seem angry. Just a little roughed up.

“Yeah,” Terry says. “I really am so fucking sorry.”

“Right,” Jack says, “me, too.”

“Nah, bro, I mean – look. People are vultures. Like, me too. I'm an ugly-ass vulture.”

“Ha,” Jack huffs. Then he huffs again, another half-laugh. “You know what?” Jack says. “That wasn’t so bad. No, seriously. They made a good point, at the press conference. I’ve handled – um,  _this_  – worse in the past.”

“Yeah,” Terry says, “not that that’s like, setting the bar high or anything, Jesus. No offense!" Jack shrugs.

“Better is better,” he says. “Right?”

“Yeah,” Terry nods eagerly, “that’s totally true. Just - you’re doing really good, you know? More than just _better_ , you’re _good_. I mean. You are, right?”

Jack meets Terry’s eye. “Yes,” Jack says, eventually. “I’m good.”

That makes Terry feels a bit better, and also a bit worse, because it looks like Jack’s just gonna forgive Terry his shit. And Terry is going to let him, even if he’s getting off easy, because he really does want them both to be alright. “Okay. Okay, awesome, man. Just, one more time lemme say it: I’m really, really sorry. So. Are _we_ good?”

“Sure, Terry.” And there it is, that little bit of relief that makes Terry’s stomach hurt, that Terry’s never going to fucking forget. “We’re good.”

“Great. Can we get out of here, then? Someone’s going to come by for a mop and think _I’m_ your boyfriend. Not that that would be a horrible thing! Just, you know. Bitty’d probably be disappointed, right, I mean-“

“Okay, Terry.”

Terry shuts up and turns resolutely to the door. He lets himself breathe for a moment, lets himself get his shit back together, before he pops it open and glances out to see if anyone’s wandering around. No one is and he slides into the hallway, rolling his shoulders.

“You _can_ ask me things, you know,” Jack says quietly as the move toward the parking lot. Terry glances at him. “I … trust you. If you’re curious about stuff, better me than some, uh, tabloid. Or website.”

Terry goggles at him. “Wait, really? You mean it?”

“Within reason.”

“ _Really_?”

“I’m trying to be adult, here-”

“ _Anything_?”

“Forget I said it.”

“Within _reason_ , Zimmy says. Like, sex stuff?”

“Still no, Terry,” to Terry’s intense relief, Jack just … blushes and rolls his eyes. He pushes out the doors and into the parking lot. “ _That’s_ never going to be your business.”

“What’s not Ter-bear’s business?” Kels asks, popping up out of nowhere like an enthusiastic, mood-killing jack in the box and slinging an arm around Jack’s shoulder. Ilia wanders out the door behind him, arm in a loose sling. “Is it my business?”

“No,” Jack says, blinking at him. “What are you still doing here?”

“Me n’ Ilia got roped into signing some stuff for kids. One of them had my jersey! She said I was her favorite! It was so cute, holy shit-“

“Why are you here _now_?” Terry interrupts. Kels pouts at Terry, mumbling, _steal my fun, you soulless jackass_ , and then lets go of Jack so he can turn beseeching eyes on him.

“You need a ride.” Jack guesses. Kels nods.

“ _Please_? And can we take Ilia, too – look at him, so sad over there, fucked up arm and everything.”

“Not fucked up,” Ilia slouches over, mulish. “Doctor say _better_. Say one week and I practice.”

“Light skating,” Jack corrects, but he leads them over to the truck and opens the door for them to climb in back. Terry tries to make meaningful eye contact as he drags himself into the passenger’s seat, but Jack ignores him. Terry pulls a face and takes out his phone.

“Shotty gets music rights,” he says. Kels groans, but Ilia’s got that slight tilt to his head that means he didn’t totally understand. “Shotty,” Terry says, pointing to his seat. Ilia shrugs.

“Jack,” Kels says over the top of Terry’s totally awesome country music, “can we stop and get food?”

“Food, yes,” says Ilia, “need food to heal, doctor says.” There’s a pause and Kels kicks Terry’s chair. Terry yelps and jerks around in his seat to swat at him.

“Yeah, Dad,” he huffs, pounding at Kels’ knee, “feed us?”

Jack shoots Terry a withering glance that’s got no heat and pulls the truck around.

“We’ll go to Marsha’s place,” he says, “but we’re sticking to our foodplans.”

Kels whoops.

 

* * *

 

Las Vegas is _fucking_ hot.

This isn’t, like, news to Terry, but damn. It’s almost the All-Star Game and Terry’s from _Toronto_. He likes his All-Star breaks like he likes his Christmas breaks: white, cold, and sedentary. And Terry is _feeling_ it this year, the intense need to just … sit down for a while. There’s a roughness in his throat, an alarming pressure in his sinuses. For once, there’s no part of him that wishes he was going to Nashville. Jack can have that honor all to himself. Terry’s going to have a hard enough time surviving Las Vegas, which is red, baking, and full of a Stanley-Cup-winning douchecanoes.

“This is unnatural,” he grumbles as the team slouches through the airport. The floor is covered in bright purple carpeting and the hallway is lined in palm trees. They pass under a neon sign that says _Welcome to Las Vegas!_ and flashes. Terry feels it more than he sees it, pulsing at the back of his soar eyes. “This is a fucking desert,” Terry continues, moping, “What the fuck are palm the trees for?”

“Smile, Terry,” says Ilia, who is staring at the golden sphinx statue just visible out the window. The grin on his face is huge and bursting with excitement. “Good health, good weather – good city.”

“Yeah, Terry,” Kels says. “Ilia, look – there are _airport gambling machines._ ” He propels himself into Ilia’s back and pushes them towards the glowing lights. Jack shakes his head.

“They’re so excited,” he muses, in a voice that clearly says ‘what a mystery these humans are.’ Terry gives him a commiserating look but Sky barks a laugh.

“You fucking _grandpa_.” Sky pulls a face and adopts a ridiculous Canadian accent, “Kids these days, eh, so much energy, ya know, so much _spunk_.”

Terry pushes at Sky, gasping, “mock _Zimmy_ , not _Canada_ , you Yankee jackass!” and Jack is just smiling and smiling. Terry side-eyes him as Sky squawks and ducks away. Jack’s been calmer lately, more sociable. He stayed after the morning skate to practice faceoffs with Kels. He did a promotional project with a children’s shelter that included voluntarily acting like a human on camera. When they announced the All-Star roster, he said, “I’m really honored to be playing with guys like Ovechkin, it should be a lot of fun,” and Terry’s pretty sure he meant it.

It probably helps that Bitty’s been around more. He’d spent the last week of his winter break in Providence while the Falconer’s enjoyed a string of home games. Terry’d hung out with them a couple times – once by accident, and then once for dinner with a whole crew of Samwellians. Ransom and Holster had been there, begging distraction from their theses, and Shitty and Lardo came down, too, bringing weed that everyone but Jack and Terry smoked. He hadn’t been able to keep up with all the conversation, but it had still felt nice. Terry didn’t spend a lot of time with people who did anything other than skate aggressively for a living.

(Well, mostly nice. It had taken a little while for Bitty to stop glaring icy daggers at Terry, but that was fine. Terry figured that he hadn’t gotten the most glowing play-by-play of the last few weeks.)

Besides that Terry left Jack and Bitty alone. Their earnest brand of bewildered, tender affection was gross and made Terry miss his girlfriend and besides - they deserved to have _all_ of the sex. After Bitty’d left Jack had shown up for morning skate with a fucking afterglow.

Terry pulls in a lungful of desert air, which is sandy and tastes like chemicals, and does the opposite of glowing. He hacks out a cough and feels it rattle the center of his chest. The heat of the desert is dry but his suit is still sticking to his sweaty forearms before he can get to the door of the bus. He tosses off his jacket and tie and slumps next to Jack, chewing on chapped lips.

Jack and Terry sit in the seventh row of the bus on the right side, smack in the middle, scrambled up with the rookies and the other vets. Ilia and his defensive partner sit behind them, Kels and his fat ass somehow own their own row across from them. Sky wanders back and forth down the center aisle, bopping along to music and occasionally requisitioning the long string of seats in the back for “power” naps. Jack had been the one to commandeer the seventh row, which Terry now suspects was an early attempt on Jack’s part not to rock the boat.

Terry turns the overhead air vent on blast and points it as his face, resenting the awkward, infant Jack of the past. He _misses_ the clean hierarchy of his old team’s bus. After five years there he could demand his own space and privacy and expect to get some rest, but not now, not with Kels kicking him and Sky bumping his knee every two minutes.

His only consolation is knowing that Jack misses it, too – when his phone buzzes, Jack glances around the bus furtively before looking down at the screen and making a face.

“Just take it, dude,” Terry mutters, “s’it Bitty?” Jack shakes his head, still frowning.

“Parse,” he whispers. Terry raises an eyebrow.

“I didn’t know you guys were still talking,” he says, right over Jack, who has calmly answered the phone and is speaking in low French.

“ _Bonjour, ça va … nous allons dîner ensemble ce soir, non?”_ Terry leans into his space.

“Tell him to go fuck himself!” he hisses. Jack ignores Terry, turning towards the window and cupping his hand around the phone.

“ _Ton français est toujours horrible_ , eh?” There’re muffled protestations from down the line. “I said, ‘your French is still horrible.’ Are we on for dinner?”

Terry pokes him in the ribs.

“Mhm,” Jack murmurs, shoving at Terry. “Just text me the address and … yeah, Kenny, yeah. Me too,” then Terry hears him whisper, “Thanks.” Jack drops the phone back into his lap.

“I didn’t know you guys still talked,” Terry says again. Jack just shrugs.

Terry’s got _theories_ about Kent Parson. Well, obviously, everyone has theories about Kent Parson. Theories about his leadership style, theories about his durability, theories about his flow and his girlfriends and his training. Terry’s _favorite_ theory originates with one of the trainers from his old team, who told Terry after the Aces won the cup that Parson had blood-sacrificed his identical twin on their fifth birthday for hockey superpowers and that’s why no one had any of his baby pics.            

But Terry has also developed another, more personal theory. About Baby Jack. And Baby Parson. And about the whole, miserable pre-draft debacle.

Terry’s no slouch. He’d noticed the way that Bitty worried about the Aces trip, texting Jack the whole time they were in transit to the airport. He’d maybe Googled some of the salacious rumors from their QMJHL heydays. And, once he’d got the theory in his head, he’d watched a bunch of Parson’s rookie interviews. Including the one where a reporter asked Parson about Jack’s overdose and Parson got red in the face and swore at him while on national TV.

The logical conclusion, at least to Terry, was that Pretty Boy Parson was Jack’s OG BF, and that whatever shit went down at the end of their last season in Rimouski, it broke Jack’s little anxiety-fucked heart.

His plan was to mess Parson up tonight, is what Terry’s saying. But that was before the phone conversation, which was shockingly civil, and before the Las Vegas heat, which is making Terry feel like an ill-tempered Canadian sloth. And also before Terry decided to start respecting Jack’s privacy.

Well, mostly respecting. In the locker room before the game he can’t help but laugh and join in on the chirping, if just because all the media coverage of the game is crazy. It’s the Falconer’s first game on a national TV provider and it’s for NBC’s fucking Wednesday Night _Rivalry_.

The promotional video included a couple – maybe, like, _three_ – shots of Mikey and Simmons. There were slogans about _Two Fledgling Franchises Fighting to Make Their Mark_ and _The Aces Have Proved That You Never Count Out the New Guy_. But mostly, after that, it was a million and one shots of Parson and Jack staring intently into the camera like they could check each other via game promos. That’s what people are coming to see – Jack Zimmerman and Kent Parson on ice again, a hockey dream deferred.

“How many times do you think Mike is going to say the word _rivals_ tonight?” Sky asks.

“Oh Jesus,” Mikey does a tiny giggle-snort as he laces up his skate, “if you did a shot for every one you’d die before the first horn.”

“Is someone going to keep track of how many puck bunnies try and kill Jack with their eyes?”

“I can’t believe we got a Wednesday night slot with NBC on the power of Parson and Zimmy’s gay-ass relationship.”

“I feel like we’re playing the Cobra Kai Dojo, here,” Kels says, gesticulating wildly, “and Parse’s that - fucking, Johnny, or whatever – the blonde faggot with the headband? And _I’m_ Ralph DeMaggio!”

Terry swipes at Kels for the slur, because he’s trying to be better about that shit, but he can’t help laughing. Parson _does_ look like him. Before the Falconers step onto the ice he leans into Jack’s ear and whispers, “Wax on, wax off.” Jack just blinks at him. Then the door opens and they have to go and go, lights swinging and music blaring, and Terry is sinking in the roar of the fans. He loses his thoughts about Karate Kid and Parson and Jack in the chaos.

They come back quick, though, when the game starts.

“Holy _fucking_ shit,” Casper pants, spitting his mouth guard into his palm and swiping at the back of his neck with a towel, “have these fuckers gotten _faster_?”

“I swear Parson has,” Kels gasps. “That goat-fucking motherfucking assfucker.”

“Not fast enough,” Jack says, eyes pinned on Mikey as he powers into the Aces’ offensive zone, twists around Simmon’s attempted hit and whips the puck at the Ace’s goalie for a glove save. “We can get them. Their transitional game is sloppy, wait, just – look.”

Terry leans forward to watch the faceoff, equally intent, and tracks the puck as Parson wins the draw and snaps it to the right. He sweeps into the Neutral Zone and they are, in fact, stupid fast. But a pass from an Aces’ D-man ricochets off the boards and Simmons fumbles receiving it, and there it is; a moment of weakness in an otherwise perfect machine. Terry grits his teeth into a grin and jambs his elbow into Jack. “Yeah,” he says, “we can get ‘em.”

Casper and Jack nod.

Then, suddenly, one of the Ace’s wingers catches Mikey’s skate with his stick and sends him sprawling. The linesman raises his arm and Terry blinks, the roughness in his chest scraping with his sudden, sharp inhale, because that’s … definitely a penalty. Play stalls and the ref calls tripping and the Falconers are doing it, they’re _going on the power play_. Terry and Jack look at each other, like, _holy shit, man, here it is!_ just as Coach K’s meaty palms descend on their backs.

Mikey stands without help and skates awkwardly towards the bench, favoring one leg. As he passes he slaps them each on the shin with his stick and snarls, “slaughter them, boys!”

And then it’s Jack and Terry skating out onto the ice. The ref motions Jack forwards, impatient, but he turns to look at Terry. They bump fists and Jack reaches out for a last squeeze of Terry’s shoulder, a last moment of heavy eye contact. Terry nods, Jack smiles, and then he squares up for the faceoff and the crowd goes totally _insane_.

Terry takes a half second to notice that they do look pretty epic: Parse’s crooked smile as he crouches, his sharp nose and red flush; Jack’s heavy eyebrows and hard cheekbones, his expression absolutely deadly. It’s some GQ model ying-and-yang bullshit, is what it is.

Then the puck drops and it’s go time.

Break left, receive puck, pass, receive puck, take a hit, get up, shot!, center the puck, break left, center, rebound, pass, pass broken, break back, faster, check Hanson, that fucker, take puck into offensive zone, go ahead pass to Jack, wrist shot!, GOAL.

Jack’s celly is a thing of incredible beauty – one-knee sliding and fist pumping and arms up in the air, ostentatiously happy like Jack almost never is. Terry struggles to get air back into his heaving lungs as he hugs the ever-loving shit outta his Padawan, screaming into his ear _yes, yes, you beautiful son of a bitch, fuckin’ showed him!_ The rest of the special team slams into them and they press themselves against the boards, ignoring the slapping of Aces’ fans against the glass.

Mikey pulls them back onto the bench as the third line strides out, slapping at Jack’s back and burbling something delighted at them that Terry literally can’t understand through the shouting crowd and the accent.

But the delight of the moment is eclipsed by the delight of the final horn. The team spills gracelessly onto the ice, sticks high in the air, whooping and generally acting like they won something bigger than a regulation game against a non-divisional team. Jack is swarmed against the boards. Terry, lightheaded and woozy, laughs along, skating slowly and accepting backslaps and chest bumps. He’s first in line to tap Sky’s helmet and then he drifts to the side to catch his breath and watch Parson stop and pat each of his guys on the shoulder as they disappear down the tunnel.

In the locker room afterwards Terry leans back in his stall and lets the adrenaline soak out through his feet. His head is pounding. There is an ache in every single part of his body, growing in force as his heart rate slows. His face feels hot but his hands feel cold.

“You okay, Ter-Bear?” Kels is looking at him, brow knit in concern.

“Just a cold,” he mumbles. He coughs, pathetically.

“Oh, well,” Kels looks over at Jack, “what about going out tonight?”

Terry squints at Kels. There are two more games left in their road trip. It’s so tempting. But they _can’t_ afford to let the momentum drop, can’t get sloppy or slow now. They’ve got a flight early the next morning to Denver and Terry knows the tightness in his chest is a negative-good sign. So he puts on his best “Alternate Captain Listen-to-me-now” face and says, “Kels, if you’re hungover tomorrow, I will rip off your dick and shove it down your _bitch_ throat.”

“Jesus,” Kels mutters, “okay.”

“Zimmy,” Terry twists to look at him, “you still-?” Jack looks down at his phone, which is sitting next to him on the bench, screen dark, and shrugs.

“I think so.”

“Sick,” Terry slips a shirt on over his head and grabs his bag. “See you at the hotel then, man. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Boys? You are all beautiful and talented. Good game.”

There’s a chorus of responses ranging from sincere, muddled gratitude to overloud vulgarity as Terry ducks past Coach K and George, mumbling about missing the bus. He catches a last glimpse of Jack, watching him, concerned, but he doesn’t want to talk. He slips his cap lower and dodges around the media and staff.

In the car, Terry’s headache just gets worse. He sits with his forehead cradled in his hands while the Uber driver talks about all the sights that Terry’s just gotta see while he’s in Las Vegas, how old his kids are, and say, did you know that the Aces are playing tonight? Terry deliberates getting out and walking, but can’t shake the feeling that the crush of humanity outside the tinted car windows would literally stomp him out.

When Terry gets to the hotel room he drags the curtains shut on the Vegas lights. He fishes around in his bag for painkillers and pops a couple, makes himself stay up long enough to finish a water bottle, and then strips to his boxers and climbs into bed with his phone.

The brightness is all the way down but it still aches in his temples. He flicks through twitter, tweets something kind of funny at Sky, stalks his sister’s facebook, then flicks through his text messages. He shoots one to his mom that just says: _moooom I’m sick and I wish I was hooooome_. Then he rereads the last text exchange between himself and his girlfriend like seven times, because he’s a fucking moron.

Here it is:

**Kelly (7:36am)**

_Thnx for bfast._

**You (7:36am)**

_No prob_

**Kelly (7:36am)**

_and for coming ovr last night._

_Good luck on the game._

**You (7:37am)**

_Thanks_

_bye._

**Kelly (7:37am)**

_Goodbye_

**You (10:03am)**

_Goodbye_.

**Kelly (11:23pm)**

_Goodbye_

That’s it. It’s not a very auspicious capstone to a relationship that Terry’d thought was going to end in a destination wedding someplace warm and kinda tacky, but whatever. He hadn’t known what to say. Still doesn’t. All Terry wants is to be healthy and to win and to have a girlfriend who loves him. Why the fuck is that so hard?

Wheezing out a frustrated breath Terry tosses his phone off the side of the bed and then instantly regrets it. He contemplates leaving it there and letting Jack wake him up in the morning, but what if his mom calls him back? And he really should set an alarm so that he can do a health assessment when he wakes up. And he hates not knowing what time it is.

(Also, could his mom please call him back? He wants to talk to her like the wimpy, twenty-seven year old baby that he is.)

He’ll just go get it before he goes to sleep, he tells himself. Not right now, though. He’s fine. He’ll wake up if it starts buzzing. He’ll get lots of rest. And in the morning the fuzz in his head will be gone, and so will the phlegm currently making breathing from his nose totally impossible, and then the team will win their next game and he’ll get at least two points.

But Terry’s dreams are shallow and feverish. He wakes twice in a couple hours, once because he’s so hot he thinks he’s going to melt into a puddle that will then be burned, and the second time because he’s so cold he’s going to breathe out snow.

When he wakes up the third time it’s because Jack is cursing and hopping around on one foot in the darkness. Terry blinks at him.

“Did you step on my phone?” Terry croaks.

“Uh,” Jack says.

“Oh nooooooo,” Terry struggles to sit up. “Is it broken? Jack, did you break it? Zimmyyyyyy-“

“No, I don’t _think_ it’s broken,” Jack reaches down and flips it in his hand, studying it. It lights up when he taps the power button and casts a medicinal glow to Jack’s face. Terry squints at him, absently trying to catalog Jack’s facial expression.

“What time is it?” Terry asks. Now, Jack looks embarrassed.

“Uh,” he says, “almost four?”

“In the _morn_ -“ Terry is stopped by an explosive sneeze. Jack leans towards him, shifting the phone so that its light falls on Terry. Terry squints into it and whines.

“Are you okay?” Jack asks, frowning. He walks over to the bed and sets the phone down next to Terry. Then, to Terry’s bemusement, he drops himself down next to it.

“Bro?”

“Just gonna,” Jack reaches out and pushes his wrist against Terry’s forehead. Terry blinks at him. “Hot,” Jack says.

“Yeah,” Terry agrees. He narrows his eyes at Jack. Through the haze of sleepiness and pain, he feels himself perking up.

What the _hell_ happened with Parson tonight? Jack’s got a bizarre, shifty look in his eyes, and the motions he goes through - dropping his shirt on the floor, asking Terry if he actually bothered to take his temperature, rummaging in his bag for fever meds - all feel manic. When he holds the pill bottle, Terry can hear a faint rattling, like Jack’s hands are twitching.

He lets Jack continue to hover like a determined, over-charged robot and wonders why Jack, paragon of professionalism, got to the hotel so late. He bets it’s connected to what happened to Jack and Parson all the way back in the good old days – wants to know, _so badly_ , what could possibly have gone so wrong that Jack’d almost died in the bathroom of a stranger’s house in Quebec. He can remember Parson, floppy haired and round-faced from the draft, pretending like all Hell through his whole rookie season that his boyfriend hadn’t maybe wanted to die, snapping at reporters who asked him about it. He feels abruptly sorry for both of them.

“Hey, Jack,” he starts, and Jack whips his sharp gaze around to stare at him. Terry winces. Jack’s DO NOT ASK vibe is, like, flashing red in Terry’s face. He rethinks his strategy, reminded almost violently of the afternoon in the closet. He coughs again, a sensation like gravel being ground up in his chest, and consciously lets the curiosity go in a wave of self-pity.

“Can you get me some water?” he asks instead, plaintive. Adult Jack looks at him, tired and ragged but alive and at least mostly sane, and rolls his eyes. He brings Terry a glass of water and watches him drink it with the same weird, intense energy he’s been doing everything else.

“Are you going to be okay to skate tomorrow?” Jack asks when Terry’s drained it. Terry’s stomach lurches.

“Yeah,” he scoffs. “Obviously.”

“Are you sure?” Jack’s face is furrowed, and he sits back down next to him on the bed. Terry scrunches away. “Because if you’re not, we should call staff first thing in the morning…”

“We’ll see them anyway, Zimmy.”

“Yeah,” Jack insists, “but they need to know as soon as possible if they have to change the lines.”

Terry now feels _nothing_ but pity for his own self. Certainly he feels none for Jack.

“I’m fine,” Terry says. But Jack’s eyebrows are dubious and his hands waver in the air like he’s going to reach back for Terry’s sweaty face. Terry, coltish and weak, ducks his head into the covers.

“Okay. But are you sure? Because if you’re not, we should really-“

“Shut the fuck up, Jack,” Terry says tightly, “I’m going back to fucking sleep.”

“Can I just-”

“Zimmy,” Terry says, “get the fuck outta my face and go to sleep. We’ll _both_ feel better in the morning, okay?”

There’s silence. Then Terry feels Jack get up and off his bed.

“Can I leave the bathroom light on?” he asks. Terry grumbles something indistinctly affirmative back. He tries to fall asleep while Jack moves around the room, but the little noises that he could normally ignore feel amplified. Finally, Jack flicks off the bathroom light and crawls into his own bed.

“Good game,” Jack whispers.

“Oh my god,” Terry whispers back. “Yes, fuck, fine. Sleeping now.”

Jack snorts and rolls over. Terry tries not to focus on the pain in chest or the way he can’t really breathe. Instead, he lets himself feel grudgingly affectionate, and amped up for the next win, and, just, really grateful for Jack and the understanding they’ve fought to have.

“Yeah, okay,” he says to the room. “It was a really good game.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, as always! French is courtesy of captainmycatisthedevil.


	5. Trust in Good Things

Terry does press after they lose:

“We _had_ to win this one, obviously,” he says, twisting his Falconers cap in his hand, “but tonight wasn’t our night. And it’s disappointing to miss the playoffs. But, uh, sometimes you try your hardest and it just doesn’t work out. But yeah, it’s definitely hard. To be so close and then lose it.”

Someone from the back, a brunette with huge eyelashes, asks Terry something so fast that he doesn’t catch it. But he doesn’t want to stop and clarify, so he clears his throat and tries to answer it anyway.

“I think we’ve played really well this season,” he says, “Really hard. I think, uh, you can tell that we improved a lot. From the beginning. Figured out a rhythm, figured out how to work together. Uh. People will have to look out for us next year, for sure. And we got a few more games left! So.” He shrugs. Someone else leans in.

“As Jack Zimmerman’s currently leading the team in points, I want to ask: do you still think he’s a viable candidate for the Calder?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course. Jack is a real leader. He’s a great guy, too. I’m proud of our all rookies and they _really_ looked up to him. Everyone’s better when Jack’s on ice, even me, and, y’know, I been round the block a few times. And. Like you said, he’s leading in points, so. So yeah, I think he’s a strong contender. We’re just really lucky to have him! Super excited to see what we can do next.”

He looks up for another question but is startled out of it when a hand descends on his shoulder. George smiles at the reporters and they bristle away.

“Sorry,” she says, “I’ve got to steal him. Thanks everyone. C’mon, Terry.”

He stands up and follows her, shuffling out of his stall. He knows some of the cameras are watching him as they goes.

“Thank you,” he whispers to George, who keeps a smiled pasted on and nods at him until they’re in the hallway. Then she drags him down to her office.

“They’ll be gone in a minute,” she says, and shuts the door gently behind them. Terry nods. George maneuvers around him and leans against her desk, looking at him with cool eyes.

“Uh,” Terry says after a moment of silence, “What’s up, buttercup?”

“First,” George says, “I wanted to say again, thanks for everything you’ve done this year. You’ve been a really important part of getting this team off the ground, and I want to make sure you know that before we continue.”

“Oh, sure, right,” Terry mumbles, “Since, you know, that’s not a scary way to start a conversation, or anything.” George laughs a little.

“Yeah,” she agrees, crossing her arms. Then her weak attempt at a smile wavers and goes out. “You didn’t hear the second question at all, did you?” she asks.

“Uh, no. Not really.”

“Still gave it a shot, though.”

“I mean,” Terry shifts a bit, sheepish. “There are only so many things you can say after a day like this, right?” George looks at him. “Uh. How obvious was it I was talking out my ass?”

“Pretty obvious,” George says, her mouth twisting. She takes a deep breath. “Mikey’s not renewing his contract.”

“ _What_?” Terry squeaks.

“That’s what they were asking about. The news hasn’t been released, officially, but the media’s started speculating.”

“Are you _serious_?”

“Terry…” George gestures to the chair pulled up in front of her desk. Terry wrenches it out, staring at her, and falls gracelessly into it. George leans forward and braces her arms on her thighs. Their legs knock together; their eyes meet. “Here’s the deal: Mike’s forty years old. His knee is acting up. He’s tired. His doctors are worried about his heart. It’s his time. Oh, c’mon. This can’t be that much of a surprise,” George tilts her head, “he hasn’t played a full twenty minutes since the hit in Las Vegas.”

“Sure, I guess,” and he did know. Terry noticed, Jesus, obviously he did, but they’d been making a _playoff run_. “It’s just, I’ve sort of been focused on other stuff!”

“Of course,” George allows. “But now it’s time. Terry, I asked you in here because I need you to think about your leadership role. Next year’s going to be hard. If Mikey’s gone, I want you to consider taking the C.”

(Internal reports from Terry’s brain in this moment would read _Error: Captain_Beaumont (?) Username not recognized. System overheating. Please try again._ )

But Terry … _can_ see it. He’s imagining it now without wanting to: Mikey gathering the team around after their last game, somber but smiling, thanking them all for the opportunity, apologizing for missing the playoffs, tastefully announcing that he’s moving back home to bum-fuck North Dakota. Terry cracking a nice, modest joke about how he’s leaving them in capable hands.

“Look, George, I want to go _home_ ,” Terry says, tamping down on hysteria, “and _sleep_ for 24 hours. Because I have to play three more _freaking_ games! I don’t want to think about this yet.”

“Too bad.” George leans over the desk, emanating intensity, and Terry can’t help but look her in the eye. “Season’s all but over, Terry. A couple games left to try and cement the Calder and then Jack’s gonna come out. We need to project stability, growth, and confidence. And we need to know what kind of leadership we’re going to have on the team when that happens.”

“Wait, come out?”

“I know he told you.”

“Are we talking about Bitty?” Terry chokes. “We are, aren’t we?”

“Terry,” George says. “I _know_ that you know Jack’s gay. I’m telling you three things right now, okay? And then you can go. Deal?”

Terry scrubs a hand through his drying hair. “Okay,” he squeaks. “Sure.” George nods.

“First, Mike is retiring and we need a new captain. Second, Jack Zimmerman is going to come out as gay. Third, you’re in a unique position to help the Falconers – and Jack – make these transitions neatly.”

“Am I though?”

“You’re a leader on the team. You support Jack. The ownership trusts you - more importantly, I trust you. You’re a solid guy, Terry.”

“Right. Me. Okay.”

“Listen,” George looms next to Terry, putting a hand on his shoulder. “ _Don’t_ decide now. This is why I’m telling you early. Take time. If you say yes to this, it’s a lot of responsibility and a lot of scrutiny. Next year will be …” George gusts out a hard breath and squeezes his shoulder, “hard.” She gives him a pat and lets go.

“Yeah, alright,” Terry says, “I’ll think about it.” He stumbles to his feet, graceless with end-of-season exhaustion, and dawdles for a moment. Clears his throat. “Uh, thanks. And thank the GM. For asking. I’m honored, you know. Never really thought I’d be here.”

“Yeah well,” George flaps a hand at him and cocks a small, tired grin, “we’re all shocked by your competence. Let me know if you want to talk it over, okay?”

“Sure thing,” and Terry pushes into the hallway.

Where he, of course, bumps immediately into Mikey.

“Hey,” Mikey says, stopping. He's just outside the door, clearly headed home, his shoulders sagging under the weight of his bag. His wife is next to him. “You, uh, headed home?”

“Yeah,” Terry says.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, totally,” Terry shakes himself, makes himself grin and wave at Sarah, who waves back with a sympathetic turn to her mouth. “Sorry, just, uh. Tired.”

“I get it,” Mikey says. He reaches out a hand and Terry grasps it, trying not to think _this might be me next year_. “I just wanna say, Ter, that you played a great game. And you’re a great Alternate. I’ve been real lucky to have you around this year – just, really. Thanks for everything. And, uh, I’ll catch yah on Wednesday for morning skate, huh?”

“Sure,” Terry shakes Mikey’s hand firmly and tries to make meaningful eye contact, but he can’t tell if Mikey knows what Terry was doing in George’s office. He just looks disappointed.

“You sleep well tonight, okay? And enjoy the day off.”

“Will do. See yah later, Sarah.”

“You too, Terry. Good game!” Then they’re gone, arm in arm, down the hallway.

Terry watches them disappear and just _feels_ it. The loss.

He stands for a moment in the empty hallway, curling his hands tight in his pockets. He doesn’t want to wait for anyone else to catch up with him, wants to believe that Jack can find his own way home. Doesn’t really want to be reminded that he might captain the first NHL team with an openly gay player. Doesn’t really want to be reminded that Jack’s his best, super problematic buddy. He sighs and releases his fists.

“Hey,” Terry says when he sticks his head back into the locker room. Jack glances up from where he’s huddled with Kels and Ilia, all three of them looking like they got hit by a truck, the same truck, a tableau of shared annihilation. Kels is, for once in his damn life, totally still and silent. He’s on the floor by Jack’s knee, leaning against the bench, stalled with half his clothes on and staring into space. Ilia’s at least moving, slowly pulling on his shirt one arm at a time.

Jack is already dressed. His Falconer’s hat is on his head, his bag is packed by his feet. He nudges Kels with a toe and when he sees Terry Kels frowns and starts reluctantly moving.

“You gonna be good?” Jack asks them as Kels pops his head out of his shirt.

“Yes,” Ilia says quietly. “Thank you, for, uh, wait.”

Jack nods seriously. He gets up, claps Ilia on the shoulder and then reaches down to haul Kels to his feet. “Get rest tonight,” he says once Kels is standing, “and take care of yourselves.”

“Okay,” says Ilia. Kels rubs his face and nods. Jack peers at him for a second, waiting for something, and then shrugs and grabs his bag.

“Okay, then. See you guys later.”

“Augh, shit,” Kels mutters, flailing a hand in Jack’s direction, “just - wait.” He looks up. His eyes are red. “Seriously.” He clears his throat and Jack stops, turning to give Kels his full attention. “ _Thank_ you for this season. It was awesome, okay?”

Jack’s eyes are soft and knowing. “Not over yet, eh?” he says, and when Kels pulls a long face Jack taps him gently on the head.

Terry’s gut clenches. Yeah, okay, this is Terry next year. But this is Jack in three years, in five years, in ten; this is Obviously-Captain Jack. And Terry, well, he knows what he’s gotta do. In fact, if this is what they’re leading up to, Terry knows what he _wants_ to do. There’s just a couple things he has to take care of, first.

Jack and Terry travel back to the apartment building in silence and it feels like the air has too little oxygen. The walk from the car garage to the back entrance is familiar: the rows of cars, the keypad and the smell of new carpeting, the discrete nod from the security guard – all familiar. The guard doesn’t stop them, and nothing about his face says he knows they lost tonight. It gives Terry an itch under the skin where his neck meets his shoulders because, like, it feels  _too_ familiar. Too much like nothing has changed.

At his door, Terry slows and Jack stops with him. He jams the key in the lock and pushes it open, gesturing for Jack to come in. “I won’t keep you long,” Terry says, lowering his bag to the floor and sagging gratefully. He rolls his sore shoulders. “I’ll even feed you.” Jack looks exhausted but he shrugs, shoots off a text, and kicks off his shoes.

Terry fetches them both Gatorades and peanut butter sandwiches and Jack sets himself up at the kitchen island, tapping gently on the granite. They eat slowly. Their silence is carefully balanced and delicate, consciously sympathetic, and so Terry breaks it carefully.

“I think I’m going to get a, like, real house,” Terry says. Jack cocks his head and glances over at him.

“Yeah?”

“Yep. With a backyard. A big one. And a huge fucking bathroom with heated tile floors.”

“That sounds nice.”

“Yeah. George, uh,” Terry swallows a dry bite of toast, “George asked me to be the captain next year. So. Seems to me like I might just be sticking around, eh? For at least a little while and – ah. _Hey_. You don’t look surprised, like, at _all_.” Jack quirks a half-smile at him.

“I’m not. That’s great.”

“Did someone _tell_ you?” Terry demands, indignant.

“No,” Jack says, setting his sandwich down. “I just figured, since Mikey was retiring … between you and Casper, you were the more hands-on alternate. You’re younger. You’ve got a five-year contract. And you produced this season. You’re the obvious choice. None of it is _surprising_.”

Then he goes back to eating his toast.

“Wow,” Terry says. Damn him, he’s genuinely touched. “Thanks, man. That means a lot. Especially after all the, y’know …” He flops his hand around, trying to reference his less-than-perfect response to Jack’s gayness without having to actually, you know, _reference it_. “Uh. By the way. I heard that you’re planning on coming out? What’s up with that, man? Why didn’t you say anything?”

Jack coughs on a breadcrumb. “Shit,” he wheezes, “so George talked to you about it.”

“Not, like, in detail.”

“There aren’t any – _ack_ – details,” Jack clears his throat again and Terry gives him a hard smack on the back. His face is red, but at least part of it’s just a blush. “Georgia’s got a statement ready, so I mean, once it _happens_ there’s a plan. But, we want it to be, uh,” Jack looks down like he's embarrassed. “Normal? We just want people to find out when they do.”

Terry gives Jack a pitying look. “Sure, I hear you, but like. Bitty’s going to tweet that shit, like, instantly.”

“We haven’t decided the details yet,” Jack says again. “But that’s definitely … one idea.” He’s doing an admirable, but not perfect, imitation of someone who’d be fine with coming out via twitter. Jesus, Terry thinks, why the fuck does he try?

“You look ill,” he observes. “Why’re you doing it if it _clearly_ makes you wanna hurl?”

“Honestly?”

“Yeah, man, honestly.”

“I was _going_ to wait,” Jack says. His face is tight, intense. “I always said I’d wait. But for what, eh? Retirement? My first trophy? Eric’s graduation?” He gestures, frustration in every arc of his big hands. “I talked to – I mean, there are guys who have it all and they still can’t do it. They’re waiting for some sign that’s never going to come and in the meantime, they’re – it’s not sustainable. Or healthy. And I can’t be that guy again. I don’t want _Eric_ to be that guy.”

“Q,” Terry interjects, “we _are_ talking about Parson, yes?”

Jack shoots Terry a heavy-lidded look of recrimination and Terry rolls his eyes, but he holds his hands up, palms forward – don’t attack, he’ll back off. It’s not like that didn’t answer the question, anyway.

“Alright,” Terry says. “Okay. Good. So, you’ve got some kind of a plan, and I’ve got the C, and, like, I’m with you, man. We can talk about, like, what you want me to say and shit but I’ve got your back. It’ll totally be fine. We got this. Go team.”

“Terry-“

“On two conditions, though!”

“You’re … with me on two conditions?”

“No!” Jesus, that came out wrong. “I’m with you no matter what, bro, seriously. I meant it will be _fine_ on two conditions … er. Okay, just listen.” Terry sort of feels like he’s choking on his fucking foot it’s shoved so far down his throat, but he’s not going to let this go. His support for Jack isn’t conditional, not anymore, but Terry’ll be damned if that means he stops bossing his rookie around.

So he looks Jack straight in the eye and says, “I know you hate this shit, but you _have_ to tell the team. Before Bitty posts anything online. They deserve to hear it from you, so that they know you, like, trust them. Okay? That’s condition one.”

Jack regards Terry coolly, face turned a little away from him. He nods, just small, his lips pursed, and so Terry swallows and continues, “and you have to be one of my Alternate Captains. I’m sure as shit not doing this alone.”

“…What?” Jack asks. He looks stunned. “Why?” His eyes are that enormous kind of consuming, pitiable hugeness that had disconcerted Terry from day-freaking-one, and Terry’s not going to entertain his self-doubting, dramatic bullshit right now.

“Just take the deal, Zimmy, and don’t be an bitch. I’m not gonna sit here and circle-jerk. I’m too fucking tired. Christ.”

They marinate in the silence for a moment, until Terry gets too jittery and hauls himself off his stool to toss the dishes in the sink. Then he recycles their Gatorades. Then he wipes down the counter, sweeps the lingering crumbs into the trash can, and feeds Rooster. He walks all around Jack, unmoving at his kitchen island, throwing laundry he hasn’t touched since the All Star break into the hamper, ignoring his phone, eating a banana. Finally, fed up, he tosses banana peel in the sink, too, and glares over at Jack.

“ _What_ ,” he says, “do you need to, like, think about it or something? Cuz, like, I guess, whatever, if that’s what you need. But, for the record? I totally made my mind up in like, two minutes.”

Jack snorts. He rubs at his forehead, tipping his cap back. “No,” he says, slowly, “I guess I don’t need to think about it.”

“Well. Thank _fuck_.”

“Eric will be here for the last game,” Jack continues. “I’ll just … bring him to the party, afterwards. Then if someone tells,” he shrugs. “That’s kind of how we were going to do it, anyway.”

“Dude!” Terry smiles at him. He knows this is the sticking point for Jack. He remembers Jack flipping the fuck out when Terry suggested it a few months ago. Whatever brought this on, whatever shit went down with Parse, there’s still a kernel of pride buried in Terry’s dark soul for Jack’s willingness to put it all out there. “That’s great, _sick_ , even, but buddy. No one will tell.”

“Sure.”

“Holy shit,” Terry groans, but he’s still smiling. “I can’t talk about this now. You shut the fuck up and go upstairs, young man. Or you’ll miss your bedtime and then it won’t be fine, after all.”

Jack rolls his eyes and gets up, and Terry notices. There is color in his cheeks. His hands are calm when he ties his shoes back on his feet, his back is straight. Terry follows him to the doorway, and he’s still tired, totally exhausted, but now there’s a kind of tingly optimism in his hands. It’s too early and the loss is too raw for it to feel like real excitement. But it’s close.

In the hallway, Jack turns to him and says, on a gusty breathe, “Also? I’m glad that you didn’t thank me for the season.”

And Terry can’t help but laugh.

“Yeah,” he says, “I hate when people do that.”

“It’s weird, eh?”

“Totally. It’s like: this is my fuckin’ job.”

Jack smiles at him, and then does the weirdest, most Jack thing: he grabs Terry’s hand firmly in his and shakes it, three times. The tingle in Terry’s hand feels like needles when Jack lets go, bright and sharp.

So he reaches over and grabs the kid, reeling him in for a hug, and whispers in his ear, “I promise, Zimmy, it’s going to be _okay_.” And yeah, it takes him a moment, but then Jack hugs back.

“Yeah, man,” he says. “Yeah.”

 

* * *

 

Bitty is sitting in Jack’s living room, tapping something out on his phone.

“Uh,” Terry glances around. “Sorry, bro. I didn’t know you were here.”

Bitty waves a hand at him. “Not a problem,” he says, putting the phone away and half-smiling. He slips off the couch and – for the love of God – makes to grab Terry’s coat. “Please, c’mon on in. Make yourself comfy. You lookin’ for Jack?”

“Yeah.” Terry awkwardly hands over his track jacket to Bitty, who shakes it out and then hangs it up in the closet. “Where’s he at?” Bitty shrugs.

“There was something up with the tires on the truck,” he says. There’s a strange tenor to his voice, a little strained, a little hurried. “You want anything to drink?”

Terry shakes his head and tucks his hands into his pockets, bashful. He wanders into the living room and Bitty trails him. “Hey,” he says, “congrats on the playoff run.”

Bitty huffs, and does that thing where he waits for Terry to sit and look comfortable before speaking. “It’s the same every year,” he says, “we get so _darn_ close.”

“Better that than, like, not there at all. Miles from there. Like us.” He meant it mostly in jest, but Bitty rolls his eyes at him and absconds to the kitchen, leaving Terry to sit, on edge, in the living room.

Terry doesn’t really know what to _do_ about Bitty. He likes him fine – he’s a bomb hockey player (thanks, youtube), he makes sick food, he’s kind to the point of absurdity – but Bitty’s clearly still not 100 percent on-board the Terry Train. The last time they’d hung out it had been mid January, just after Terry’d come down from his peak of dickishness, and Bitty’d just kind of … politely ignored him. The way he was doing right now.

That first day, just before the Vegas trip? When Bitty had answered the door, cheeks flushed with wine and laughter, clothing rumpled, to find Terry in his pajamas pants, carrying game tape – _that_ had been bad. The smile had dropped off his face. Terry, who’d been expecting Jack to be alone and reading something boring, had fumbled with his words, awkward and stilted, until Bitty had cut him off by turning back into the apartment and calling, “Jack, your _friend_ is here.”

“Who?” Jack had come up from behind Bitty, looking similarly debauched, and winced when he saw Terry.

“Uh,” Terry waved the USB stick. “I brought. Um.” Jack had just stared at him, seemingly stricken. Bitty had to be the one to break the standoff, stepping back from the doorway with a forced smile.

“Well,” Bitty had said, as if he had no other choice. “Y’all want to come inside?”

No, Terry really hadn’t wanted to _come inside_ , because coming inside had all the earmarks of awkwardness that Terry avoided the shit out of in his adult life. Even Jack looked horrified by the idea.

But Bitty’s face had been impossible to say no to, even if it promised both death and pies, and Terry had taken the plunge. He had figured that he had to, given it might have been his one chance to prove to Eric that he wasn’t a bigoted mouth breather.

It hadn’t … totally worked. Bitty had been hospitable. He asked after Terry’s family and his game and laughed when Terry talked. But when Jack and Terry sat at the counter, Bitty stood by the sink. And Terry couldn’t stop tripping over his words, like the more southern and polite Bitty got the dumber Terry was, the more flustered and defensive, and it wasn’t until Bitty caught Jack glancing anxiously between them like he was watching his house slowly set fire that the tension in the room eased, the bite going out of Bitty’s “here, lemme grab that for you,” and “you’ll get your game back, Therron.” It’d been Bitty who’d invited Terry back for dinner, and even though Terry knew he did it for Jack, it had still felt like it meant _something_. A truce, maybe. A cease-fucking-fire. And certainly during the dinner it felt like it – Bitty stayed mostly out of Terry’s orbit, friendly but distant, always caught up in a conversation with Lardo or Holster on the other side of the room.

It was too bad, because that was the last time Terry saw Bitty before the end of the season. Which meant that Terry hadn’t really had a chance to check in on the status of their weirdness before the party where Jack, looking like a complete tool, introduced Bitty to entire team and their families as “my boyfriend, Eric,” prompting shattering silence.

But, Terry didn’t have to know that Bitty forgave him or liked him or whatever to know that they needed to be united in that long, horrible moment. So while Jack went red in the high spots on his cheeks and started choking on his own tongue, Terry propelled himself toward Bitty, hollering, “Yo, bro!” and throwing an arm around his shoulder. “Good to see you!”

Bitty’d given him a flashing look of such intense gratitude that Terry’d almost given the game up by dying from embarrassment, but Bitty pulled it together it quickly. He took a tiny breath, pushed Terry off himself, and laughed like this was all _so_ normal.

“You just miss my food,” he said. Then Kels came up to shake his hand, squawking out an indignant “I fucking knew it! Good to meet you, man!” and then Bitty’d been … basically fine. He’d been more than fine, actually, he’d made Jack look like a ass by comparison - looming over Bitty’s shoulder for like the first _hour_ of the party, scowling like a bodyguard as people came up to say hi. Bitty had to thwap him on the chest and ask pointedly for “a glass of water, from the kitchen?” before Jack backed off.

In Jack’s defense, the vibe was pretty weird. It was a party, people clumped, but a few folks were obviously clumped so as to better gossip about Bitty and Jack. Some of the guys didn’t come up and introduce themselves, or they were distant when they did. No one seemed sure if they should ask the obvious questions, except that hockey players are socially maladjusted egomaniacs so a couple of them did anyway, which made Jack go stony and reticent and left Bittly to come up with little anecdotes about when they met and what it was like at Samwell while simultaneously deflecting questions about how long this’d been going on.

Most people, and especially the family members, just looked confused.

But as the night settled in, and Jack never said “lol just kidding haha jokes” and Bitty didn’t, like, disappear, people got over it. Kels announced at least three times, obviously delighted, that he totally _knew_ it, man! before Terry told him to shut his ugly mouth. Mikey clapped Jack on the back and offered Bitty some of his very, very nice wine. Casper introduced them both to his family and smiled when Bitty leaned down to carry on a very serious conversation with his daughter about her Taylor Swift tour shirt. Later in the evening Sky sidled up next to Jack, saying something quiet to them both that made Jack smile. Illia was maybe the most alarmed, but at Kels’ not-at-all-subtle insistence he shook Bitty’s hand anyway and cautiously said, “you play wing, da? Is good for small player.”

So it had also been fine.

Which begged the question of why Bitty was still ignoring Terry, puttering around in the kitchen, banging open cabinets and, at least twice, the fridge.

“Do you know when Jack’s going to be back?” Terry hollers, just to break the quiet.

The reply is muffled.

“What? Yo, bro, I can’t hear you, hold on-“ Terry vaults off the couch, idly hoping that Bitty has some shit for Terry to eat in there, and reaches the door just as Bitty sputters out,

“Oh, no, don’t-“ meaning that he walks _straight_ into Bitty sniffling wetly into a soapy pot. Terry freezes.

“Shit!” he says, gaping, clamping down on immediate instincts to sprint away from the whole situation. “Did you, like, cut yourself? Are you okay?”

“No, no,” Bitty croaks, “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Terry asks, ‘cuz he’s definitely not, “Cuz I can totally go get – I mean - do you need me to, like, call-?“

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” Bitty snaps.

“Okay!” Terry stops the hand that was creeping towards his phone. “No calling. Got it. Look, I'm unarmed.”

Bitty turns back to the pot. He’s taking deep breaths, his hands curled into fists, wet and raw, on the counter. After a moment he straightens up, dries them on a rag, and moves to face Terry.

Neither of them seems to know what to say.

“So, how about them-“

“I’m sorry about the-“

They stop.

“Okay,” says Terry. “You don’t have to tell me anything and I don’t have to call anyone. But is there anything that _I_ can do?”

“Is this Captain Beaumont speaking?” Bitty asks, smiling a bare, wimpy little bit. Terry shrugs.

“I dunno,” he says. “We didn’t get off on the right foot but I’m, like, rooting for you, man. Like, you’re on my team, _basically_.”

“Am I?” Bitty asks. Then he shakes his head and sags against the counter. “Sorry, no, you’re right. Please, sit yourself down. Lemme grab you something to drink, k?”

Terry figures that at this point it’s probably better not to fight it and lets himself sink onto a stool, lets Bitty start the coffee and set out mugs, quietly requesting “like, a bunch of sugar? Season’s over, right, and I kind of hate the taste of black coffee.”

“Oh, me too.” Bitty reaches into the fridge and drags out vanilla creamer. “Jack used to chirp me about it – paying four dollars for ‘fancy coffee.’ Is this okay?”

Terry nods. Bitty pours them both full cups with generous amounts of creamer. Then, to Terry’s surprise, Bitty takes his coffee and sits next to him at the counter. The sunlight is coming in through the window behind the sink, propped slightly open, and the breeze is cool and wet. The smell of spring is strong.

“What’ve you got left to do this year?” Terry asks, trying for casual as he blows gingerly across the top of his mug.

“Well,” Bitty says, his voice unsteady, “finals. Team banquet – we’ll be announcing the new captain, saying goodbye to the seniors. Lardo’s final art show. Graduation. A couple interviews for, um,” he clears his throat, “internships? In Providence. That’s why I’m here now, actually. Tryna get a job.”

“Damn,” Terry whistles. “So … you’ll be around here all summer?”

“Planning on maybe a week at home,” Bitty says. “Right before school. But, yeah. Most of it.”

“Living with Jack?”

“Yeah.”

“That’ll be cool.”

“Yeah.”

“So why does your face look like that?”

“Like _what_?” Bitty asks, clearly affronted.

“Like, all weird.”

“It doesn’t look _weird_!”

“What is it with you two and your faces? Yes, it totally does. What, do you not want to be here? Bad jobs? No rodeos? I mean-”

“Oh, you are just so - I _have_ to be here!” Bitty hisses. His eyes are glistening. “It’s not a choice. Home for me is a little … uneasy right now, what with the whole ...” he sweeps his hand around his head, indicating either himself, the room, Jack, or all of it.

 _Oops_ , Terry thinks. He really hadn’t meant to get into shit.

“It’s not like,” Bitty swallows. “I mean, my parents love me very much. But they don’t, uh, understand entirely why it’s so important that Jack comes out. And why I gotta be a part of it. So. We thought it would be better if I was here when - when the news gets out. Coach, that is, my Daddy, he’s got stuff goin’ on this summer. He doesn’t need, uh,” Bitty blinks hard, takes another deep breath. Stops himself. “And the internship opportunities are _fantastic_ , thank you very much. Important, if I want to stay here after graduation. Okay?”

“Super!” Terry rushes to say. “That sounds, um, pretty tough.”

Actually, it sounds like the literal worst. Terry’s parents are the bomb-dot-com. His Dad’s a little intense, but like, he’d never ask Terry to do something he clearly didn’t want to do. He would never ask Terry to fuck off to the other side of the country for his own sake. And if he tried, Terry’s mom would throw a complete fit.

Watching Bitty curl tight around his mug and stare fiercely at the swirls of creamer on the surface, Terry discovers something important that he’d somehow missed: Bitty is an actual adult, human person.

First, he’d just been a mysterious voice at the end of Jack’s desperate phone calls. Then he'd been a threat. Then he was an awkward half-friend half-adversary, like the in-law you don’t like. It had never occurred to Terry that this whole deal might be just as hard and just as scary for Bitty as it was for Jack. But, just, _looking_ at him now? Terry sees a _person_ : a twenty-one year old college kid, young, juggling a million things and trying to make it all work. Including some horrifying shit that has nothing to do with Terry _or_ Jack.

And in that moment of discovery Eric Bittle, person, began to occupy the important mental categories of 'friend' and 'padawan.'

“Does Jack know that you’re, like,” Terry casts around for a word, gives up, “sad?”

Bitty nods quickly. “Oh, he knows, he’s been tryna look out for me. But we haven’t talked about it much. He’s been so busy. This year’s been hard. I didn’t want to be the one who made it harder.”

“Bitty – can I call you that? I mean I do in my head, but – okay. Do you want some advice from an adult who _isn’t_ Jack Zimmerman?” He doesn’t wait for Bitty to answer. “Look, I’ve been doing this thing for a while, okay?”

“Alright-“

“Listen, I had a girlfriend. _Have_ had girlfriends. And nothing tanks that shit like pretending shit’s okay when it’s not.” He thinks about how excited he was to see Kelly, how that could have been avoided if she’d just talked to him, or if he’d told her he was miserable without her – if either of them had been honest. “You’re a good thing,” he tells Bitty, who flushes, mouth pressed in a tight line, “you like Jack a lot, right? You’re basically moving in this summer. Great. But like, don’t get so lost in that you can’t be, like, okay anymore. Jack would _hate_ that. You make him so happy, y’know? So you should be, too. Feel me?”

“I … feel you,” Bitty echoes. “Do you do this for Jack, too? Dispense unsolicited advice?”

“C’mon, man, you’ll talk to him?”

“Lord,” Bitty says, “I was going to, anyway.” He shifts. “And I do want to say thank you for – for caring for Jack. For us. Especially at that party. I know I haven’t been exactly sweet to you, but you were a life-saver.”

“Oh, well. No problem. I deserved it, you know?”

"Well, it's appreciated." Terry nods. Then he resolutely shotguns his coffee, because how the hell else do you follow that up?

“I might be working at a magazine this summer,” Bitty offers after they’ve let the sentiment sit a moment. He takes a small sip of his drink. “They have a copyediting internship in their lifestyle section. That’s what I, um, do. You know, with the pies.”

“Oh, you’re awesome at that.” Terry says, “I’ve seen a couple of your videos.” He’d actually hate-watched a couple of Bitty’s videos back when he thought Bitty was going to tank Jack's life, but Bitty doesn't need to know that. “You’re really good.”

“You’ve seen those?” Bitty looks taken aback, but then he smiles. “Well, thank you. That’s … nice of you to say. Real nice.” Terry shrugs. It’s just true; Terry looks like a potato troll on camera. Bitty looks like the Southern Angel of Hospitality. “And what are _you_ doing this summer?” Bitty asks.

“Eh, traveling a little. My brother lives in Vancouver and I don’t get to see him that much anymore, so. But I’ll be back in Providence in July to try and move into the new house. They’re doing work on it now, but-“

“You gotta be there for the end.”

“Right, yeah. And get some furniture figured out.”

“Oh, you know what?” Bitty reaches down and grabs his phone, rubbing idly at the dried bit of tear track on his cheek, “there’s this lovely shop near Brown campus that sells old furniture … I’ll send it to you. Here, add your number.”

“Yeah, bro, totally, hit me up. The last decorator I hired got me all this chrome shit and I first, I was like, this is dope. But it wasn’t that comfortable? And-“

“Oh, I know. It’s nice to have shiny things but sometimes you just want something soft.”

“ _Yes_ bro!”

They keep discussing their plans for Terry’s living room, his heated bathroom floors - Bitty insists that he’ll help Terry buy kitchen appliances, really, Terry shouldn’t worry about it, Bitty loves shopping for pans - until there’s the sound of a key scraping against the lock.

“Hello?”

“In here!” Bitty calls. Jack wanders into the kitchen in a hoodie and shorts. He’s cut his hair and shaved; he looks younger than he did even a few days ago. He nods his head at Terry as he moves to Bitty’s side, rubbing one big hand across the back of his shoulders. He drops a kiss on Bitty’s head. Bitty smiles at him, so huge, and Terry scoffs and gags dramatically. He already feels like a walking too many men penalty - time to get off the ice, man.

“You just stopping in?” Jack asks him.

“Yep,” Terry says. “Saying my ‘adieus,’ asking what your plans are for the summer. Bitty, here, filled me in.”

“Oh?” Jack looks back at Bitty, his gaze soft and curious in the bright kitchen.

“Yep,” says Terry, “so, good luck to you both. Have a bomb summer, wear sunscreen, stay fit, etcetera. Text me when you’re gonna, you know, do the thing.”

Both Bitty and Jack flush.

Terry came here to say goodbye to Jack. He was expecting some moping, doling out some emotional encouragement disguised as trash talk, possibly an ill-timed attempt at going over strategy for next year. Instead, both Jack and Bitty walk him to the door, bumping into each other and trading quiet smiles. Jack says he’s sad that Terry can’t stay longer - his plane back to Toronto leaves in less than two hours - but Terry feels pretty good about it. He’ll be back soon.

At the door Bitty surprises everyone by leaning in for a quick hug.

“Have a good summer,” he says, firm. “I’ll see you in July, and we’ll get you some nice couches. Look at the catalogue I sent you.”

“Totally,” Terry agrees. “Looking forward to it.” Then Jack leans in for _his_ hug, and they grunt warmly at each other, slapping each other’s backs. Terry issues a half-hearted chirp about promising to write and then gives up.

He’s surprised to find himself … out of things to say. For the first time since he met Jack he’s got nothing pressing to impart to him, no words of wisdom for the road. He’s pretty sure Jack’s going to be okay this summer. He’s pretty sure he and Bitty are gonna watch out for each other, talk to each other, take sickeningly cute vacations and generally dominate the social media game. He’s sure there will be a lot of pies.

“See yah,” Terry says. Jack smiles at him.

As he walks away, he hears Bitty lean into Jack and whisper,

“I told you, Jack, didn’t I. Everything’s going to turn out fine.”

 

* * *

 

(The photo they upload to Jack’s instagram in May is taken on the lawn of the Haus. They’re wearing each other’s jerseys, which is so sweet it is officially gross. Bitty is _swimming_ in Jack’s, his mouth stretched in a huge smile where it’s pressed against Jack’s in a kiss. His arms are tangled in the Samwell jersey stuck on Jack’s broad shoulders, clearly trying and failing to tug it down. There’s a C just visible between the folds of stretched out fabric on the front. The caption says: _Happy to celebrate a year with Captain @ERBittle. Congratulations – I’ll just wear it as a scarf. Love you._

 _OMG_ , Terry comments, first one, trying not to get too choked up in front of his brother’s family. _OMG_ _you are so cuuuuuute. Srsly tho, proud of you guys. #GoFalcs #swawesome #thatsmypadawan_ ).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Friday!
> 
> Thanks to everyone who stuck with the story. You're all stars to me, and in a fourth-wall-breaking move, you're all stars to Terry.
> 
> <3  
> Maddie

**Author's Note:**

> A couple of quick notes:
> 
> This story is told from the perspective of 27 year-old NHL player Terry Beaumont. He's entirely of my own creation, and dearly beloved. The Falconers, too, are mostly mine, with the assumption that this is their FIRST year as an expansion franchise.
> 
> This took me six trillion years to write and grew wildly out of proportion, so while some details are consistent with canon and the 2015/2016 NHL season, some would have required too much rewriting to be made accurate and I left them as originally conceived. 
> 
> But it's almost totally done now! Just editing the last chapter. And it needed to be brought into the world. Much love and thanks to my betas, captainmycatisthedevil and yoho81, who enabled me when I should have been doing more productive things. 
> 
> And thanks to my sisters. Love you both!


End file.
